This is a departure from what Gowdy originally requested from the former secretary of state. Gowdy asks Clinton to appear twice on emails, Benghazi

The House Committee investigating Benghazi is asking Hillary Clinton to appear for two public hearings on the 2012 terrorist attacks and her email use, according to a letter sent to her lawyer on Thursday.

This is a departure from what Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy originally requested from the former secretary of state. The South Carolina Republican wanted a private, transcribed interview on Clinton’s email use and a public hearing on the terrorist attacks.


But Clinton had refused to appear in private to take questions on her use of a private email address while at the State Department. Her lawyer, David Kendall, had insisted that Clinton was prepared to take questions about her emails, the server that stored them and the Benghazi attacks during a single, public hearing.

Gowdy wrote to Kendall Thursday saying the committee plans to schedule a hearing by the week of May 18 on the emails.

“If that hearing results in assurances the public record is indeed complete, the Committee will schedule Secretary Clinton’s public hearing with respect to the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi no later than June 18, 2015, with specific date being selected after consultation with you,” Gowdy wrote.

Gowdy added in the letter that he is still willing to hold a private hearing on the emails if Clinton has security concerns about answering sensitive questions in public.

The hearings, if they occur, would generate intense scrutiny on Clinton and the congressional Republicans questioning her. Democrats will be on watch for any overreach on the part of the panel’s seven GOP members. Any Clinton appearance on the Hill would spark a media frenzy; her recent entrance into the 2016 presidential race promises to only exacerbate it.

Gowdy said in the letter he wants to quickly schedule Clinton so her interviews are not a protracted affair.

“With her cooperation and that of the State Department and administration, Secretary Clinton could be done with the Benghazi Committee before the Fourth of July,” said Gowdy. “It is necessary to call Secretary Clinton twice because the committee needs to ensure we have a complete and responsive record and all the facts before we then substantively question her on the Benghazi terrorist attacks.

The letter includes more than 100 questions that Gowdy said remained unanswered.

Democrats on the committee earlier Thursday slammed Gowdy for moving at a “glacial pace” in terms of bringing Clinton in. Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the panel, accused Gowdy of intentionally dragging out the proceedings to harm Clinton.

“The Republicans’ multi-year search for evidence to back up their Benghazi conspiracy theories has turned up nothing. The Select Committee has identified no evidence — documentary, testimonial, or otherwise — to support claims that Secretary Clinton ordered a stand-down, approved an illicit weapons program, or any other wild allegation Republicans have made for years,” Cummings said.

Democrats on the committee noted that Gowdy waited nearly 11 months from when the committee was formed last May to send requests to the Department of Defense for documents.

The new request from Gowdy is the latest volley in two months of back-and-forth between Clinton and Republicans on the Benghazi Committee. After the New York Times reported that Clinton used a private email address during her tenure at the State Department, Gowdy insisted he could not move forward with a hearing on Benghazi without assurances from Clinton and the State Department that the committee received all relevant documents.

Clinton has called on the State Department to release the nearly 30,000 emails from her time as secretary.

On Wednesday, Kendall told Gowdy that 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, noting that Clinton has been prepared to testify since November.

Gowdy has argued that he’s put off calling the former secretary of state because the committee was not confident it had all the documents relating to Libya or Benghazi from Clinton and a handful of federal agencies. Earlier this year the State Department sent an additional 300 emails from Clinton.

“Simply put, thank goodness the committee did not schedule Secretary Clinton’s appearance when some asked us to, or else that hearing would have been woefully and now obviously premature,” Gowdy wrote Thursday.