Pro-Clinton group re-ups demand for Gowdy to turn over his emails

An outside rapid-response and research group dedicated to defending the records of Hillary Clinton and other Democrats running for president repeated its call Wednesday for Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, to release his own work-related and private emails and those of his staff.

A letter from Correct the Record founder David Brock, sent Wednesday and shared exclusively with POLITICO, follows another sent March 11 in which Brock also urged Gowdy to release his own private and work-related email as he called for Clinton to turn over her server.


Clinton’s campaign earlier this month turned over the server that the former secretary of state used for email correspondence during her time at the State Department, along with a thumb drive containing the work-related emails.

“I asked earlier what it is you may have to hide by not releasing your own emails and I recognize that I am unlikely to receive a response,” Brock wrote in a letter to Gowdy (R-S.C.) dated Wednesday.

Correct the Record’s website also features a timer counting the days, hours, minutes and seconds since Gowdy received Brock’s initial request.

“The Select Committee on Benghazi may have uncovered Hillary Clinton’s unusual and unprecedented email arrangement, but it is the FBI that is investigating it. As such, it would be more appropriate for this group to direct its request to the FBI,” said committee spokesman Jamal Ware.

In the letter, Brock goes on to “hazard a few educated guesses” as to why the chairman has not released the emails, speculating that he is “hiding correspondence with GOP presidential candidates, the Republican National Committee or other political committees” that would show a “campaign of character and political assassination against Hillary Clinton in an effort to win a political campaign.”

“Perhaps you are hiding emails which would reveal how, after you pledged not to use this investigation to raise money for the GOP, you managed to attend fundraising events where Benghazi was specifically raised in a political context,” Brock wrote. “Almost certainly you and your team are hiding correspondence with numerous media outlets, the New York Times being one, which would show that the committee, and perhaps you personally, has selectively leaked erroneous and dishonest information to smear Hillary Clinton.”

Brock then writes: “If these hypotheses seem preposterous to you then the remedy is clear: release your emails and those of your committee staff.”

Clinton is set to testify before the Benghazi committee on Oct. 22, while two of her former top aides at State, Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan, will appear before the panel privately on Sept. 3 and Sept. 4, respectively.