After threatening to act since the weekend, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) sent a letter to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's lawyers demanding that she turn over her email server to a third party for examination or else.
Should Secretary Clinton continue to maintain that the server and its contents are hers alone, I will inform the Speaker of the House of Representatives so that he can use the full powers of the House to take the necessary steps to protect the best interests of the American people.
At issue is Ms Clinton's private email server. Only recently, it was discovered the former head of the State Department used her private email account run through her private server for all of her electronic correspondence during her term at Foggy Bottom. During her press conference to explain her use of the private server and email, along with the destruction of up to 30,000 emails she deemed personal, Clinton indicated that she would not allow anyone to look at the server to confirm the truthfulness of her statement.
Because they didn't ask for it when the committee was being set up, The Select Committee on Benghazi does not have the power to subpoena objects like a server, only documents.
In his letter to Ms. Clinton's attorney, after explaining the gaps in the information the select committee has received to date, Gowdy pointed out that Clinton could not legally decide for herself which emails were to be made public and which stayed out of the public eye.
Her arrangement places her as the sole arbiter of what she considers private and beyond the review of the public,” he wrote...Her arrangement allows her to be the sole record keeper of her emails related to official business conducted between two private accounts.
Gowdy went on to explain that the need for transparency with regards to her email goes far beyond the needs of his one committee to other committees in Congress and, ultimately, to voters' right to access the public record.
To that end I am asking Secretary Clinton to relinquish her server to a neutral, detached, and independent third-party, such as the Inspector General for the State Department, for review and an independent accounting of any records contained on the server, including a determination of which documents in the Secretary's possession belong to the State Department and which are private. The House of Representatives should not make this determination. The House of Representatives should not ever access documents or emails that are purely personal in nature. Correspondingly, the Secretary of State herself should not be the sole arbiter of what is public and what is private, or how to reconcile mixed-use emails, or how to certify that all responsive documents have been preserved and none deleted, including her emails related to official business conducted between two private accounts. Therefore, given the unique arrangement Secretary Clinton created as it relates to her emails, allowing a fair-minded, neutral arbiter to ensure public access to public documents seems eminently reasonable.
Gowdy ended the letter with an ominous warning:
I respectfully ask that you discuss with Secretary Clinton the request to allow the Inspector General for the State Department to do the very job President Obama nominated, and the whole Senate confirmed, him to do: zealously safeguard the public interest as it relates to official work. Please respond by April 3, 2015, as to whether Secretary Clinton agrees to provide the server to the Inspector General, or whether she wishes to discuss another neutral, detached, and independent arbiter. However, should Secretary Clinton continue to maintain that the server and its contents are hers alone, I will inform the Speaker of the House of Representatives so that he can use the full powers of the House to take the necessary steps to protect the best interests of the American people.