State Department officials released more than 4,000 documents and notes that provided the basis for the department’s internal review of the Benghazi terrorist attacks, Representative Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.) announced today.
The Accountability Review Board documents were first subpoenaed two years ago. “Getting this production from State’s Benghazi ARB is an important part of ensuring the committee has access to all the facts,” said Gowdy, who chairs the House select committee on the Benghazi attacks. “It is my desire to see similar breakthroughs reached on the committee’s outstanding document requests and subpoenas. If State will work with the committee, we can expedite the pace of the committee’s work.”
The ARB documents became a subject of controversy after a former State Department official claimed that bureaucrats scrubbed the documents of embarrassing material, under the supervision of Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff.
Raymond Maxwell, a former official at the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, told the Daily Signal last September that he was instructed “to go through these stacks and pull out anything that might put anybody in the [Near Eastern Affairs] front office or the seventh floor in a bad light.”
The State Department has never provided ARB proceedings to a congressional panel before. “I appreciate the historic nature of State’s document production and recognize the importance of State’s response,” Gowdy said.
— Joel Gehrke is a political reporter for National Review.