When CNN's Brianna Keilar asked Clinton in an exclusive interview on Tuesday about the decision to delete 33,000 emails while under investigation by a House panel, Clinton said other secretaries of state had done the "same thing."
Keilar asked if her predecessors had also been subpoenaed, to which Clinton responded, "You're starting with so many assumptions ... I've never had a subpoena. Again, let's take a deep breath here."
But House Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy said Wednesday, "It couldn't be more plain."
"To state that you never received a subpoena, you did get one, in March. Your lawyer was on notice months before that, that this committee of Congress wanted your work-related emails," the South Carolina Republican told CNN Wednesday.
Gowdy requested Clinton's emails last December, but did not subpoena Clinton until this past March, following reports that she had maintained a personal email server.
Clinton lawyer David Kendall responded to the subpoena on March 27, writing that Clinton was awaiting approval from the State Department before providing them to the committee.
More from the Washington Free Beacon
Clinton conducted official business on two personal email accounts hosted on a “home-grown” server in her New York home.
“There was no law, there was no regulation, there was nothing that did not give me the full authority to decide how I was going to communicate,” she told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Tuesday.
That is inaccurate, according to Daniel Metcalfe, who ran the Justice Department’s Office of Information Policy during the Bill Clinton administration.
“Anyone at [the National Archives and Records Administration] would have said you can’t use a personal email account for all of your official business,” Metcalfe told PolitiFact in March.
According to Gowdy, Clinton also skirted federal rules designed to preserve official documents and communications.
“Secretary Clinton had a statutory duty to preserve records from her entire time in office, and she had a legal duty to cooperate with and tell the truth to congressional investigators requesting her records going back to September of 2012,” he said in his statement.
Select Committee on Benghazi Releases Clinton Subpoena
July 8, 2015
Press Release
Washington, DC—The House Select Committee on Benghazi today released its March 4, 2015, subpoena to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in response to her inaccurate claim she had not been subpoenaed. The committee subpoenaed Clinton directly after it became aware of her exclusive use of personal email and a server and that the State Department was not the custodian of Clinton’s official record. The State Department failed to reveal this essential information to the Benghazi Committee or any other investigation into the Benghazi terrorist attacks until days before a media outlet was going to publish the information, meaning no investigation prior to the Benghazi Committee’s had access to the Secretary of State’s communications as part of its review.
“The committee has issued several subpoenas, but I have not sought to make them public," said committee Chairman Trey Gowdy. “I would not make this one public now, but after Secretary Clinton falsely claimed the committee did not subpoena her, I have no choice in order to correct the inaccuracy. The committee immediately subpoenaed Clinton personally after learning the full extent of her unusual email arrangement with herself, and would have done so earlier if the State Department or Clinton had been forthcoming that State did not maintain custody of her records and only Secretary Clinton herself had her records when Congress first requested them.”
“The fact remains, despite when this subpoena was issued, Secretary Clinton had a statutory duty to preserve records from her entire time in office, and she had a legal duty to cooperate with and tell the truth to congressional investigators requesting her records going back to September of 2012. Yet despite direct congressional inquiry, she refused to inform the public of her unusual email arrangement. This information only came to light because of a Select Committee request, not a voluntary decision to turn over records almost two years after leaving office, records which always should have been in State’s custody."
"Moreover, the timing of the Secretary's decision to delete and attempt to permanently destroy emails is curious at best. The Secretary left office in February of 2013. By her own admission she did not delete or destroy emails until the fall of 2014, well after this Committee had been actively engaged in securing her emails from the Department of State. For 20 months, it was not too burdensome or cumbersome for the Secretary to house records on her personal server but mysteriously in the fall of 2014 she decided to delete and attempt to permanently destroy those same records."
The subpoena to Clinton can be found at the link.Hillary Clinton has always denied, delayed, obfuscated and obstructed the Benghazi investigation.
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