Libyan military guards check one of the burned out buildings at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in September, 2012. Clinton lawyer: 'No reason' for private Benghazi testimony

A top lawyer for Hillary Clinton reiterated Wednesday that the former secretary of state has no plans to testify privately before a House committee investigating Benghazi.

David Kendall wrote to Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) to say Clinton is ready now to appear before the panel for a public hearing on her email use and the 2012 terrorist attacks in Libya.


“There is no reason to delay her appearance or to have her testify in a private interview,” Kendall wrote.

He added, “She has made clear that she will voluntarily testify publicly again before the select committee, and at that time, is happy to continue to answer any questions the select committee may have about her email use.”

Gowdy has requested two interviews with Clinton — a private meeting to focus on her email use and a public hearing to testify specifically on Benghazi.

The chairman had asked Clinton to appear before the committee before May 1 for the private interview, but Kendall’s letter is a sure sign that Clinton — who officially announced her campaign for president earlier this month — will not meet that deadline. The committee has been formally tasked with investigating the Benghazi attacks as well as Clinton’s email use while at the State Department.

Gowdy said in response to Kendall’s letter that he will make a decision on Thursday about the panel’s next move.

“[I] respectfully disagree with his assertion [that] former Secretary Clinton has answered all questions surrounding the unusual email arrangement she had with herself,” Gowdy said. “[T]he committee has Mr. Kendall’s letter under advisement and will issue a response tomorrow setting out a reasonable path forward with respect to Secretary Clinton’s appearances to discuss both Benghazi as well as congressional efforts to ensure the public record is complete with respect to her tenure as secretary of state.”

Gowdy noted that the Benghazi panel has “thousands of pages” from the State Department’s Accountability Review Board that were not seen by the half-dozen other congressional committees that investigated Benghazi.

“These documents, as well as other documents never before produced to any committee of Congress and transcribed interviews with witnesses never before questioned by any committee of Congress, will aid the committee as it prepares to invite Secretary Clinton to appear,” Gowdy said.

Clinton used a private email address to conduct official business and stored copies of those emails on a private server at her New York home — a revelation that enraged Republicans who questioned whether Clinton’s team deleted official documents relating to the Benghazi attacks or violated federal law on record keeping. Clinton’s camp has fiercely denied both charges.

In the letter to Gowdy, Kendall elaborated on the server, saying that 30,490 pages of emails have been sent to the State Department for review and release from the more than 60,000 emails in Clinton’s account. An additional 31,830 emails were deemed private and deleted from the server by Clinton’s lawyers.

Clinton’s campaign manager also offered high criticism of Republicans on the committee.

“Hillary Clinton has already spent five hours testifying at two congressional committee hearings but, as she’s been saying since last year, she’s happy to do it again,” John Podesta said. “Unfortunately, Republicans insist her testimony is done behind closed doors, where the American public is unable to see their true, politically motivated intentions.”

That letter states that 90 percent of the emails provided to the State Department “were already in the Department’s record-keeping system because they were sent to or received by ‘state.gov’ accounts” — including 2,900 emails that specifically mention Benghazi or Libya or were found via other searches.

The Benghazi Committee said earlier Wednesday that the highly anticipated report from its investigation would not be released until 2016, which would coincide with the presidential election cycle.

That move was criticized by Democrats on the panel, who called on Gowdy to quickly schedule Clinton’s appearance.

“Secretary Clinton agreed to testify months ago — in public and under oath — so the Select Committee’s claim that it has no choice but to subject her to a private staff interview is inaccurate,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the panel. “Rather than drag out this political charade into 2016 and selectively leak portions of a closed-door interview, the committee should schedule the public hearing, make her records public and refocus its efforts on the attacks in Benghazi.”