screeria -- nigeria. -

later energy commission chair sheryl lafleur talks about energy policy at the national press club. the house select committee on benghazi where members heard from representatives from the state department and the cia. the committee is examining events surrounding the september 2012 attack on the u.s. compound

in benghazi libya, that killed ambassador stevens and three other americans. after this 2 1/2-hour hearing, committee ranking member elijah cummings of maryland said he has spoken to former secretary of state hillary clinton, and she expressed a willingness to testify before the committee. >> welcome to everyone. this is the third hearing on the benghazi committee. the committee will come to order. the chair notes a quorum of two members for taking testimony is present. the chair will further note -- well, before i note that -- consistent with rules and practices of the house without

objection -- well, that point has now been rendered moot. so you have been reappointed to the committee. and all members can participate fully. okay. okay. all right. the chair will recognize himself and then the ranking member for purposes of making an opening statement. the committee on benghazi exists because the house of representatives voted for it to exist. and in the process made it very clear what is expected. if you have not read the house resolution authorizing this committee, i would encourage you to do so. for those asking for a road map or a scope of the investigation or want to know what the committee intends to do the resolution passed by the house of representatives, i hasten to add, with seven democrats voting yes, answers all of those questions.

the resolution asked this committee to investigate all policies, decisions and activities related to the attacks, the preparation before the attacks, the response during the attacks, efforts to repel the attacks, the administration's response after the attacks, and executive branch efforts to comply with congressional inquiries. the operative word in the resolution is the word "all." and the word "all" is about as comprehensive a word as you could use. so it stands to reason if you're asked to conduct a full and complete investigation into all policies, decisions and activities, you need to access all witnesses and all relevant documents. because the final task assigned to this committee is to write a comprehensive report complete with recommendations on how to prevent future attacks. and to write a comprehensive report, you need access to all witnesses and all relevant documents.

it is essential we talk to every witness with knowledge and examine all relevant evidence. if six people witness an important event you cannot credibly report on that event by examining one out of the six. frankly, you can't credibly report on that event by interviewing two out of the six. each witness has a different perspective. each witness may have observed a different fact. each witness has a different vantage point. so to do your job, you have to interview all witnesses. so, too, with documents. it is interesting but not relevant to note the number of pages agencies produce to congress. what is both interesting and relevant is whether the agency has produced all documents responsive to the request. giving congress 10,000 pages of material out of a universe of 10,000 pages of material is good. giving congress 10,000 pages of material out of a universe of

100,000 pages of material does not get us any closer to issuing a final report in a timely fashion. and make no mistake, time is of the essence. the world is not a safer place as some of you may have noted even this morning. it is not safer than it was in 2012, so the sooner we make recommendations related to the improvements that make lives better for the women and men who serve us abroad, the better. moreover time does not make investigations or witness recollections or memories or evidence better either. the purpose of today's hearing is to hear from some agencies and entities about the state of compliance with requests for documents and access to witness. and we have had some success. the state department provided the committee with 25000 pages of documents previously provided to the oversight committee but now with fewer redactions. in addition, this production

included finally, 15,000 new pages of documents. these documents include significantly more traffic from state department leadership and in previously provided information to congress. these new documents are a reminder that no previous standing committee compiled or had access to a complete record of events, which is precisely why the speaker constituted a select committee. to produce a complete, definitive record for our fellow citizens. additionally, as of recent the cia made available some of the documents we requested in november. and while it is good to finally receive the new documents the pace at which this process is moving is not conducive to the committee concluded its work expeditiously, and frankly, it should not take a public hearing. to make progress on these requests. our hearing should be about

substance, not process. we should be analyzing documents, not waiting for them to appear. i want to read a quote. i can promise you that if you're not getting something you have evidence of or you think you ought to be getting we will work with you. and i will appoint someone to work directly with you starting tomorrow. with you mr. chairman to have a review of anything you don't think you've gotten that you're supposed to get, let's get this done, folks. that was secretary john kerry. and that was in april of 2013. so my objective is simple. i want to be able to look the family members of the four murdered americans in the eye and tell them we found out everything that we could. i want to be able to tell my fellow citizens including the man from oregon who sat beside

me on the plane yesterday who used to guard facilities across the world as a marine that we made improvements that make women and men who serve us in dangerous places safer. and i want to be able to look my fellow citizens in the eye regardless of their political ideation and say this is what happened, and this is how we can make sure it does not happen again. so there will be no mystery to my questions today. there will be notrickery. i want to know when the agencies are going to comply with the request made by this committee so we can finish the work assigned to us because i have zero interest in prolonging the work of this committee. and by the same token, i have zero interest in producing a product that is incomplete. so in conclusion, i want to be as clear as i can possibly be. we intend to access all of the information necessary to do the job the house instructed us to do. and we need to access that information now. talking to only some of the witnesses will not work.

and accessing only some of the documents will not work. if you want all of the truth, then you need all of the information. and we will do it in a respectful way worthy of the memory of the four who were murdered and worthy of the respect of our fellow citizens. but it is going to be done. and the sooner the agencies make these documents and witnesses available to us, the sooner we can do what we were asked to do. and with that, i would recognize the gentleman from maryland. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i agree with you that we need to have all the information. we need to have all the documents. we need to have everything that you just talked about sooner rather than later. mr. chairman and my fellow committee members, i'm a bit saddened to report today that there are major, major problems with this committee's work.

democratic members have grave concerns about thepartisan path this committee has taken over the past year a path we believe undermines the credibility of the investigation itself and the very things that the chairman just said he's fighting for to make sure that we come up with a credible report. we spent months trying to resolve these problems privately. but we can no longer remain silent. when the committee was established last may, many questioned whether it would devolve into unseemly partisanship. many worried that it would become a repeat of the oversight and government reform committee. where ridiculous allegations were made with no evidence, no evidence to back them up. excerpts of documents were

leaked out of context to promote false political narratives, and democrats were cut out of the investigative process. i know because i was a ranking member, and i was cut out over and over and over again. in response chairman gowdy assured the families of chris stevens, sean smith, and glen daugherty that this investigation would honor their loved ones by being bipartisan, fair and based on the facts. one of the things that i said to the father of tyrone woods is that i would do everything in my power to seek the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me god. the chairman said that he would

transcend politics, and that's a quote. he stated these words and they meant so much when he said them. he said, if we engage in a process that is not fair according to the american people, we will be punished, as we should be for that, end of quote. unfortunately, since then, democrats have been excluded from core components of this investigation. people may find it difficult to believe, but eight months into this investigation democrats and republicans on this committee have not spoken jointly with even a single witness. instead, we were stunned to suffer that the chairman and staff have interviewed at least five individuals on their own without including democrats or

even notifying us. we learned about these interviews from the witnesses themselves and from press accounts, not from our republican colleagues. even worse when our staff inquired about some of these interviews republicans downplayed their significance. they said these interviews were not important, that one of them said nothing quote, of note, and that the committee did not plan to use them. but when we spoke to these witnesses, we got a different story. they shared key facts that undermine allegations the committee is investigating. let me repeat that. when democrats had a chance to interview some of these individuals, they provided factual information that

counters allegations this committee is investigating. rather than bringing this information forward when the committee first obtained it the information was buried. the chairman is right. we need all of the facts. facts that may not be consistent with some of the things that we're hearing. because the families of those four americans deserve that, and the american people deserve it. the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. these are not actions of a bipartisan investigation. to have secret meetings and witnesses. the way to honor the four americans killed in benghazi is to seek the truth and not to ignore the facts that contradict a preconceived political narrative. a credible investigation

recognizes the importance of collecting these facts and putting to rest false allegations rather than allowing them to fester. to try to address these problems, we ask the chairman to hold a vote on basic committee rules. we just want some rules. we want it to ensure that all members, both republicans and democrats, and i emphasize that both republicans and democrats, could participate fully in the investigation and would no longer be excluded. some may recall that our hearing in december was delayed because democrats were meeting with the chairman beforehand to discuss these problems. as a matter of fact, there were some of our republican colleagues that drifted into that meeting. following that meeting the chairman promised that we would hold a vote on the committee

rules. we even met with the speaker and he gave his blessings. but no vote has been held. what is so disappointing is that this has been going on for months. we wrote private letters to the chairman laying out these problems in detail. hoping to resolve them. we explained that this will not be a credible fair or factual investigation until the committee holds joint meetings, interviews and discussions with potential witnesses and includes all members in key aspects of our work. that is not an unreasonable request. in fact, it is exactly how several other committees currently operate such as the house armed services committee. and those -- there are those who will say that, well, maybe it's not in their rules. well, the house armed services apparently has not decided to

move to common ground. they decided to move to higher ground. but today after eight months, we still have no committee rules. so we have no choice but to make these letters public. as we explained last may when we agreed to join the committee, we need someone in the room simply to defend the truth. but we cannot defend the truth if republicans lock us out. until this changes, the committee will be viewed as nothing more than yet another partisan expensive and time-consuming campaign to continue politicizing this terrible tragedy. finally, mr. chairman, let me say a few words about today's hearing. many people are concerned about the glacial pace of this committee's investigation. but rather than blaming federal agencies we should acknowledge that the reason for the delay lies in the committee's own actions. the fact is is that the committee waited six months before sending its first request for new documents, six months.

it took the committee almost a month longer to request witness interviews from the state department. and even now, eight months into the investigation, the committee still has not sent a document request to the department of defense, and it has yet to request a single witness interview from the cia. although i continue to believe that the best way forward for our committee is to reach agreement on a truly bipartisan approach, i can no longer say that i am optimistic that this will happen. nevertheless, our door is always open. and we will always be willing to sit down in the pursuit of the truth. the whole truth and nothing but the truth. with that, i yield back. >> mr. ruben you are recognized for your five-minute opening statement. >> thank you, charnl gowdy. ranking member cummings and distinguished members of the committee, it's an honor to be with you and thank you for providing me with the

opportunity to give testimony to your committee this morning. my name is joel ruben and i'm the deputy assistant secretary of state for house affairs in the department's legislative affairs bureau. in this role i serve as the department's chief liaison to the house, responsible for ensuring that the multitude of foreign policy issues that house cares about from fighting terrorism to preventing a nuclear iran, to expanding our economic alliances in asia, to supporting your constituents when they travel overseas, are dealt with both efficiently and effectively. i've served in the federal government for more than a decade including both as a hill staff and as a civil servant in the state department during the bush administration. i work closely with committees and leadership in the house on a daily basis, ensuring that the department's relationships and communications with the house are strong and that's why i'm here before you today. as you know, the state department has a strong record of cooperation with your committee, something which we're proud of and something that you yourself recently acknowledged

mr. chairman. statements for which we're grateful. this is consistent with our work prior to this committee's formation. as the department has provided nearly two years of stated cooperation with congress on benghazi by responding to requests from ten committees through hearings with several officials including former secretary clinton and by providing more than 20 witness interviews and more than 55 congressional briefings in addition to responding to hundreds of inquiries. since the formation of this committee in may of last year, we have provided four briefings and witnesses for two more hearings plus today's. and crucially we have produced more than 40,000 pages of documents related to the tragic benghazi attacks, all of which are in the hands of your committee today. since our most recent conversation with the committee last month about its top priorities, the department has been hard at work on implementing your most recent request for documents and interviews. our problem has been slowed somewhat by the holidays and the briefing we provided to you on january 13th but also by the

breadth and timespan of the document request itself. nonetheless, we will begin producing documents soon to the committee to meet this request. to put it bluntly your priorities are our priorities. therefore, in addition to the priority documents we will be providing soon we also look forward to continuing to work with your staff to ensure that your requested interviews can proceed so long as they do not jeopardize the department of justice's investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators of the benghazi attacks. it's important to remember that from a management perspective, we cannot respond to every request for a hearing, a briefing documents or interviews simultaneously. but we can and will prioritize our resources to process your request in the order you identify as most important to you. as the committee most recently did in december. turning to your december request for interviews, your staff informed us that of the 22 names requested, the committee's priority was to interview the

diplomatic security agents who served locally during the attacks. we understand the committee's interest in interviewing these agents, and i'm sure that the committee does not want to take any action that would create risks to their personal safety or their ability to do their jobs. we at the state department have concerns that the requested interviews will pose precisely such risks. we also want to avoid interfering with the department of justice's ongoing investigations and prosecutions. as a result we've been in ongoing conversations since december with your staff, counsel for the agents and the department of justice to try to find a way forward that accommodates your request without endangering these men and their families without negatively impacting national security, and without harming the ongoing investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators of the attacks. we're hopeful that an accommodation can be reached. in closing, we are proud of the significant and steady progress we have made on the committee's documented interview requested.

we are grateful to the committee and its staff for your collegiality, and we look forward to continuing to work with the committee on its most recent priority document and interview requests of which you will be seeing additional tangible responses in the near future. thank you and i look forward to the committee's questions. >> mr. higgins? >> mr. chairman ranking member cummings and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss cia's continuing cooperation with the committee's investigation. i apologize in advance for my cough. since the committee's creation cia has enjoyed a positive and productive dialogue with the committee and its staff. as of last friday cia had fulfilled all of the requests to date. specifically, since last june cia has certified the committee's secure work spaces granted access to sensitive compartmented information for 15 members of the committee staff, reviewed roughly 40000 pages of state department documents for cia equities and through the director of national intelligence provided the

committee with finished intelligence products related to libya during the period in question. last friday cia began production of more than 1,000 highly sensitive documents requested by the committee. i understand committee staff will begin reviewing those documents tomorrow. with regard to committee requests to interview current or former cia officers we will work with the committee to respond to such requests in a timely fashion. working with classified information and interviewing covert employees can pose unique challenges. we are committed to providing the committee with access to the information you need while safeguarding intelligence, sources and methods. we look forward to continuing our dialogue in the weeks ahead and i look forward to your questions today. >> the chair now recognizes himself for questions. mr. ruben have you read the house resolution? >> pardon me. yes, sir, i have. >> what is your understanding of what this committee's been asked to do? >> my understanding is that the committee's been asked to review the incidents related to the benghazi attacks and all of

the -- as you described it, the beginning, and all of the aspects that it speaks. >> so your understanding is that we have been asked to look at all policies decisions and activities that contributed to the attacks? >> certainly that's our understanding, and we support providing the information related to that request. >> that affected our ability to prepare for the attacks? >> well if that's the -- if that's ultimately the decision -- >> well, you've read it, right? you've read the resolution right? you're not disagreeing with my interpretation of the resolution, are you? >> no. and we defer to the committee's direction on how it wants to proceed. >> including executive branch efforts to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of these attacks, did you read that in the resolution? >> sir, i don't have it in front so i can't quote it. >> i'd be thrilled to get you a copy of the resolution. for the meantime you're going to have to my word that it also says executive branch efforts to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of these attacks. that's in the resolution.

can you tell me specifically how our interviewing witnesses is going to jeopardize the preparation. prosecution. >> sir the department of justice has been clear -- >> i'm asking you. it was in your opening statement. i'm asking you. you tell me a former prosecutor how our interviewing witnesses that have already been interviewed by the arb already been interviewed by the best practices panel and frankly already been interviewed by the state department. the video that you showed us last week, that agent interviewed the witnesses in preparation for a video. so if the arb and the best practices panel and your own agency can interview people in preparation of a training video, how can congress not interview those witnesses? >> sir, no one has said that congress cannot interview these witnesses. >> you just said it would jeopardize an ongoing prosecution, and i just asked you specifically how. >> my understanding -- and i am the chief liaison to the house for the state department -- is

that our colleagues at the department of justice have been in touch with your staff -- >> specifically who told you that? >> my colleagues within the state department who work on -- >> i'm looking for a name because i've got to clear up this misconception that simply talking to a witness who's already talked to three other investigatory bodies, that somehow or another congress cannot talk to these witnesses even though apparently everybody else can. i'm curious how that jeopardizes an ongoing prosecution. >> sir, i'm not an attorney. i'm not a prosecutor. what i am is the chief liaison to the house for the state department. and what i am conveying is that the justice department told us that this could have an impact and they would like to have a conversation with you and your committee about that. >> when you -- do you believe that congress has the constitutional authority to provide oversight? >> every day i do that with my job, yes, sir. >> so you do agree with that. what is your interpretation of the phrase "all policies decisions and activities"?

>> in what context? >> in any context. how about contributed to the attacks? what is your understanding of all policies all decisions, all activities. >> the approach that we are taking at the state department is to provide materials to the committee at the direction of the committee. the request for interviews that you have reiterated here today, i am explaining that. the justice department has said that they would like to have conversations with the committee for the concern about the protection and welfare of these agents on an ongoing investigation. >> i want to ask you something, okay? because there are 12 people up here who may not agree on another single solitary thing, but every one of us agrees that we don't want to do anything to jeopardize the physical security of anybody who works for this government, nor does anybody on this dais want to do anything to jeopardize an ongoing prosecution, okay? can we stipulate that, that nobody wants to do either of those things? >> certainly. >> will you also stipulate that

you can talk to witnesses while preserving their identity and not jeopardizing an ongoing prosecution? >> i am confident that in the conversations between the justice department and the committee that those modalities can be discussed. i am not the expert. >> mr. ruben, do you see the justice department at this hearing? >> no, sir. >> do you know why they're not at this hearing? >> no, sir. >> because we don't have any issues with them. that's why they're not here. you just cited a reason to deny access to witnesses that even the justice department hasn't cited. so what i want you to do is help this committee gain access to precisely the same witnesses that everyone else from the arb to the best practices panel to your own agent who compiled a training video had access to the witnesses. >> sir as i said in my opening statement, we are happy to have the conversation with you and your staff on how to engage on this. and that is something that we're

open to. we have never said no. >> well, and i appreciate that. i appreciate that. but i want to make sure that i and i have a clear understanding with each other. if six people observed an important event and you were being asked to write a final definitive accounting of that event, how many of the six would you want to talk to? >> sir, i understand -- >> that's not a trick question. >> i know it's not a trick question. and i understand the point. and this is why we are here. >> well, if you understand my point -- >> provided the quantity of documents and worked in collegial terms. >> mr. ruben, we're going to get to the quantity of documents in a minute. i notice that you said 40,000. that's an impressive number. that's 40 copies of dr. zhivago 40 copies of "crime "crime & punishment." that's a lot of pages. 40,000 out of how many? that's our question. how many documents? is 40,000 half? is it all? is it two-thirds? >> we have made a comprehensive

search. and as you know, the state department spans 275 missions overseas. 70,000. >> i'm not asking you to bring any ambassadors back. >> -- comprehensive amount of -- >> i'm not asking you to bring any ambassadors back to search for e-mails. i'm not. not a single one. how many employees does the state department have? >> roughly 70,000. >> 70,000? >> correct. >> all right. and we have asked for e-mails from seventh floor principals. do you think that is a reasonable request when you have been asked to study all policies, all activities and all decisions? >> in your -- in your committee's december letter where it named principals -- first -- in fact all of those principals have -- there are e-mails, there are documents related to them in that 40,000. and in addition, you and your -- >> is it your testimony that we have all of the e-mails that we've asked for? >> well you and your colleagues prioritized former secretary clinton's e-mails and that is our priority as i stated. >> well, i would say multiple

e-mails. if there are multiple e-mail accounts, we want all of the e-mails, okay? >> and we agree and we are as i said earlier -- >> you may have noticed my colleague from maryland used the word "glacial." i find that -- i find the use of that word interesting when you vote against constituting a committee, when you threaten not to participate in the committee when you continually threaten to walk away from the committee when you can't identify a single solitary person that you would issue a subpoena to when you are prepared to have an asked and answered website before you got the 15000 pages of documents that you just provided, when you expect members of congress who are having conversations with people on airplanes to stop the conversation and say let me go get a democrat, you heard the word "glacial." we're going to pick up the pace. we're going to pick up the pace. i have no interest in prolonging this. none. >> sir -- >> so you're going to have to pick up the pace with us, okay? >> absolutely.

and this is why we're here today. we have made two witnesses available since the fall of last year. we are prepared at any time. proactively as you and your colleagues now -- >> i appreciate that. are you familiar with the subpoena that dates back to 2013 that the oversight committee sent with respect to the arb? >> yes. >> okay. arb is a statutory creation, you agree? congress created the arb? >> yes, it did. >> do you agree congress can amend, enhance or alter the arb? if it's a statute, sure. congress can change it, right? you agree congress should provide oversight over one of its statutory creations? >> yes, sir. >> how can we do that if you will not give us the documents related to the arb? how can we possibly do that mr. ruben? >> sir first, of the 40,000 pages of documents that the committee has received, many of those are, in fact related to the arb. >> mr. ruben, i appreciate -- i really do i really do i appreciate the word "many."

i appreciate the 40,000. i keep coming back to one word that's in the house resolution, and that word is "all." >> sir -- >> do we have all of the documents? >> what we have communicated to you and your staff and what we've been grateful for is the committee's explanation of its top priorities. and we would be very honored to continue to have those discussions. if the arb, as you've noted here becomes a top priority, that is certainly our priority. >> you have 70,000 employees. what we're not going to do is identify one tranche of e-mails and then two months later go to pose or do a witness interview with that witness and then two months later get another tranche of e-mails. when our colleagues on the other side who by the way, had no interest in forming this committee whatsoever but are now ironically complaining about the pace of the committee that they had no interest in forming

whatsoever, it's time for us to pick up the pace. and i'm looking to you to help me do that. >> and that's why we're here, and that's why we have continually engaged proactively with you and your committee, and we're happy to continue to do so. >> okay. >> and i would mention the 70,000 employees are engaged in their jobs. >> i appreciate that. i don't want any ambassador security guards, i don't want anybody taken off of an important job. but compliance with congressional inquiries is important. and if you have time for common demonstrations or culinary diplomacy, i think you have time to comply with a legitimate request for documents from ng co congress, and i'm sure you would agree. with that, i recognize the gentleman from maryland. >> mr. smith. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr. ruben, i'm going to try something different and try to let you get a complete sentence out in response to a question so we can hopefully elicit some information. first of all, the document

request, the first document request that this committee sent out was on november 18th. the committee was formed in may. so -- sorry my math's a little on off here, between may and november, that's five or six months before the committee made a document request. now, the chairman would have everybody believe that they've been begging for documents from day one, and you've been stonewalling them, and that's the only reason we can't proceed. but fact number one is from may to november, there were no document requests from this committee, okay? if we're not interested in dragging it out, that just boggles the mind. that you wouldn't make a document request. now, putting aside for the moment that there have been nine separate investigations, and gosh i don't even know if anyone could count up the number of document requests that you have received from those nine separate investigations or the number of documents that you have, in fact, provided but the reason democrats on this committee are concerned about the so-called glacial pace is that's a long time to wait for a

document request, if you're in a big hurry. the second interesting thing about the little back-and-forthright there is as near as i could tell and it was hard because you were being cut off so constantly you have not said no to any request to interview a witness, is that not correct? >> that is correct. >> so let's just be clear about this. this stonewalling effort that the chairman just described includes a situation where you have never said no to an interview request. and the interview request has been relatively slow in coming. so maybe we will get to the point where you do say no. you were making the legal point and i'm ranking member on the armed services committee, and we've been through this with investigations before where the justice department always gets a little queasy when somebody else wants to interview a witness. as a former prosecutor, i know mr. gowdy would have felt the same way if somebody came in and said hey can i talk to your witness? you always get a little nervous

about it but it doesn't mean that you don't do it. and i just want the record to be very, very clear here. the state department has not said no. now, if we get to the point where they do, then we can have a conversation about it. so that whole little back-and-forth to sort of create the illusion that the reason the committee is moving so slowly is because of your unwillingness is very unfair to you and very unfair to the state department. there may come a time in this committee's investigation when you are being uncooperative and then we can have that conversation. we ain't there yet. and these are the issues that mr. cummings raised that gives us a concern. why was this committee formed in the first place? now, one of the things that i really want to make clear from mr. gowdy is he's never going to get every single question answered, and he's never going to get every single document. i've been a legislator for 24 years, prosecutor. i have not yet encountered the event in human history where every question gets answered. it's frustrating, it's

irritating because part of it is if you interview all six of those witnesses you get six different stories and then you can't figure out how to reconcile them. we are not going to get every single question answered and to lay that promise out to the families involved the people whose lives were destroyed by this, that somehow we're going to answer every question when no other investigative committee in the history of the world has ever been able to answer every question i think is unfair. that's not what we're doing. we have nine separate investigations that have been done. so withhat the democrats are concerned about on this committee is whether or not this committee has a clear purpose, okay? or is that purpose purely political and partisan? because the other thing that i'm readily going to admit is that benghazi was an awful incident in our nation's history. and the people who are in charge when it happened, you know they've got to feel very, very bad about it happening. it is the nature of being the

president that bad things happen on your watch. when george w. bush was president, 9/11 happened. when bill clinton was happened, somalia, among other things, happened. 18 dead americans. when ronald reagan was president, we had two suicide bombings in beirut. jimmy carter went through the iran hostage crisis. there is no question that benghazi is a bad bad incident in the obama administration. it has always been my suspicion that the purpose of this is to focus on that bad incident as much as possible for partisan and political reasons. now, we gave him the benefit of the doubt, said okay, let's see. formed may, no document request till november 18th. we're in january. we don't have a vote on the rules. you know we get occasionally a loose time line for the interview that seems to want to drag it out as close to 2016 as possible. look, if we want to do honor to these families, then let's do a

realistic investigation. and then we have the final fact. i'm sorry mr. chairman, it is not just people that you ran into on an airplane and didn't tell us. there were specific witnesses that were interviewed by the republican majority, and they didn't tell the democrats. and in a couple of instances, those witnesses contradicted the information that the majority was seeking. again, information not provided to us. now, i serve as the ranking member on the armed services committee and buck mckeon and i when he was chair we've had our disagreements, but i'll tell you, there's never been anything like that where evidence on the other side we just sort of exclude from the minority party. all of those facts add up to this being a partisan and political investigation. now, if we want to change that and actually start trying to work together, that would be wonderful, but as our ranking member pointed out after we raised these issues of interviewing witnesses and not

telling democrats, not only was it changed, you're attempting to write it into the rules of the committee that that would be permissible. so that is our concern. the slow pace of this. again, we started in may. we had our first document request in november. interviewing witnesses without interviewing democrats. all of this points to a goal and objective of this committee that doesn't have much to do with finding out the truth and doesn't have much to do with preventing future attacks. now, i hope we get better at that, but i've got to tell you, what i just witnessed between the chair and mr. ruben here you know trying to make it look like they're being stonewalled when they're not hardly encourages me. and again i'll just conclude by emphasizing the fact that mr. ruben pointed out they have not said no to interviewing a witness. and i agree with mr. gowdy. as members of congress we're constantly bumping heads against one administration or another. we want to interview every witness. when you get to the point where you do say no, well, then maybe

we'll have an argument but you haven't said no. the documents -- you're trying to generate the document request, as i understand it included a request for two years worth of information from about i don't know 14 different people all around libya. and in the year of e-mails and texts and everything else, that's a heck of a lot of information to find. good luck finding it. and i see no evidence that either of these gentlemen are not trying their best to find it and provide it for us. i don't know if you're going to find everything. but it is clear that there is no stonewalling effort here. that the reason that we've moved so slow is because the decisions made by the committee. now again, and, you know i tend to be a little bit more impatient than our ranking member. that's why he's got the top job. he's better at it. you know, for me about a week ago when i learned about all this stuff it was, you know,

time to say hey, what's the point? what are we doing here? but mr. cummings is a patient and thorough man. and if the committee will now begin to include us in these things, stop accusing the state department of stonewalling when they're not and pick up the pace a little bit i guess it is still possible this committee could -- could serve the purpose that it stated. and yes, we have all read what the republican majority voted for in creating this commission. they want everything. and, you know, it's going to take time to get everything, i would imagine. but the mere fact that the house of representatives controlled by the republicans voted for this doesn't change the possibility that it is more of a partisan political investigation than a legitimate efforts to find the truth. so i hope some of those things change. number one, at the top of the list, and i'll just close with this, it's got to be bipartisan. you can't be interviewing witnesses, particularly when we

come to find out that some of those witnesses who were interviewed were being interviewed to attempt to establish, you know, a line of -- well an argument, and it turned out that that one is directly convicted that line of argument, and then you don't tell the other side and mr. gowdy's pointed out he's a prosecutor. you do that in open court you get a piece of information like that, you don't provide it to the other side as a prosecutor or a defense lawyer, you go to jail. all right? because that is a violation of the laws of the court. i would hope that congress would at least live up to that. so i sincerely hope that we do better. i look forward to the documents. i don't envy you of your job. there are so many documents in the world. but i hope you will provide them, and i hope you will, you know, provide what this committee asks for when they get around to asking for it. i yeed back. >> the chair will recognize the gentle lady from alabama, ms. roby. >> i thank mr. smith after the

hearing for giving you a little bit of a break. i'm going to ask you a series of questions to follow up with the chairman about the processes. we keep talking about this 40,000 documents, this universe. i want to get a better perspective from you. is that the universe of documents -- is that your position that 40,000 is it or is 40,000 one quarter or one half? can you give us an idea of what this universe of documents looks like? >> thank you, ma'am. the 40,000 is the accumulation of two-plus years of searching of gathering of documents from across the entire state department. we have provided these. we provided -- >> right. i'm trying to get an idea of in the entire universe of documents that we have yet to receive as mr. gowdy said, we are looking for all, what portion of that do the 40,000 -- because the 40000 is a lot of documents.

so what -- where does that fit into the universe? >> it's 40000 pages of documents. i said 40,000 documents. i meant to say 40,000 pages of documents. that is the significant amount. that is what we have found. that is what we have searched for, and that is what we have found. >> but you don't really know at this moment where that is. and i don't want to get hung up on that. i really want to spend the time talking about the processes that you're using to gain access. so let's start with are you using a centralized location to ensure that you're properly capturing all of the documents or is it mined out to different bureaus? >> i appreciate the question. thank you. at the state department, we do not have a single person responsible for document requests. when we have a document request, it comes from congress. the requested information

sought -- essentially means that all individuals at the state department who may be related to that information have to go looking in their files. oftentimes these are desk officers responsible for country issues, people working in our military affairs bureau, nuclear nonprolifreration bureau. >> can you tell us right now how many people you have working on the production of documents that have been requested as it relates to benghazi? >> regarding the collection of documents, i can't tell you how many state department people over the past several years have provided documents specifically because it's across the entire -- >> so there's not a benghazi group, so to speak? there's not a group of people that have been tapped to say you are in charge of document collection for the incident regarding -- incidents that happened and the deaths of the four americans in benghazi? there's not people that have been tapped for that? >> it's a fair management question. and what happens is when we get the information from across the

building there are people who review the documents. we had a discussion with the committee where we came to an agreement with the chairman and the committee that we would, at the state department provide minimal redactions of the 40,000 pages of documents. those redactions are made by experts who look at equities -- >> back to my >> is doctor a group of people. yes or no? >> again, the production is an effort that is awe cross the entire state department. >> but no, there's not a benghazi group. then i would say with 40,000 pamgs of documents, not knowing what universe, you know, in the yun version of documents, what per ser tang that 40000 pages

is, why has there not been up to 70,000 employees before. whempb individuals are asked to find something by congress, people move on it. it's a question of however, the comprehensive nature of acquiring all the information available. and we want to make sure that we do that well. if we have one or two individuals, they may miss things. >> i'm not asking about one or two. i just wanted to know if the state department took this

seriously enough that they were willing to identify a grown up of em pli yees from the 70000 whose sole just was to ensure in the daysings weeks months leading up to the attack and what happened afterwards. i want to move on. i want to know how these searches were done by the vujs as you have sated across the state department. do they do a keyword search? do they type in libya or benghazi or tripoli for any and all records that relate to benghazi? is a staff member deemed relevant? >> what do they do? >> it's actually as you described. it means going and searching the files.

searching the electronic, the hard files and) looking for documents ÷hat are relevant. and what that means in practical purposes, that topic is shared with the department and individuals at the department have to go search for whether they have information. >> why is so much time being spent redacting material from these documents? >> the state department has an agreement in place with the committee and we're very happy with minimal redarkss. >> some of these documents have been highly redablgted. >> ma'am those are not necessarily state department

redactions. we cover foreign policy across the board. >> every document is digitally stamped. so this leads us to conclude that the records are in electronic formalt. why is it that the department has produgsed in paper format despite requests for electronic come pills. >> >>. >> there's no order to the paper documents. they're not in day order, they're not by person rngs they're not by office or bureau.

just boxes of documents. we want to get to the truth. so the quicker you can get us this information, obviously the belter. particular lid because of the volume. but there's no rhyme or reason to what you're sending to us. so provide them in some sort of order? >> ma'am, this goes back to the original questions is that you asked. and we're trying to provide documents in as quick as a manner as possible in a manner that are relevant: >> you're taking a lot of time to redakt information. it seems you could at least put

them in some kind of order. i look forward to your, you know furtherer participation with this committee and your willingness to provide us these responses. quickly. i would appreciate that you get back to us on the electronic formats of these documents. mr. chairman i yield back. i want to pick up where my colleague left off. i believe that in the questioning, the chairman said the doj had no problems with the interviews that this committee wants to conduct. but i do hold in my hand a letter from the department of justice that is dated november 21st of 2014.

it states that they do have concerns. i would ask unanimous consent. >> i'm happy to reconcile those two if the jentle lady from california would like me to. >> i'd like to continue with my questioning and me comments and perhaps at the end of the hearing, there will be an opportunity for the chairman to have further time to speak on his time. >> very well. >> so i think that it's clear that the d.o.j. has expressed some concerns. and that ilgts's wrong to suggest that witnesses are being held from the committee. i believe it's a case that no one has said that there are witnesses that cannot be interviewed by this committee. i just thought it important to show that as far back as november that the d.o.j. did

communicate with this committee and express those concerns. could partisan ship be set aside? and i can only speak for myself in se that i put those concerns aside in the hope that there would be an open and honest investigation that was free of parts and motives. but, boy it looks like i was flown on that one.

and that he would outline the questions that still needed to be answered. eight months later, our committee still lacks that scope, the transparency and, more than ever, the credibility. now, i'm convinced that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are in search of this mythical creature, the unicorn, and the yunl concern being some kind of nefarious conspiracy that does not, in fact, exist. over the last few months, the ma e majority has systematically robbed democratic members of meaningful participation in this investigation. apparently, our only use is to sit up on full committee hearings and be allowed to ask a kwu e few schism questions.

the chairman has refused to convene an organizational meeting ant the increasingly part san direction that this committee has taken. in fact, yesterday the chairman told us that we could only have a vote on kplit tee rules if we agreed to vote on his rules, even though we think that they're unfair. i don't know what kind of logic that is that you can have votes as long as it's to go for what i want. we've been left in the dark. worse, the pla jorty has manipulated facts and negatives. when convenient they've left out key witness testimonies that

don't coobama rate that they're seeking to prove. and when the facts don't add up they just continue to make more fanciful claims. for example back in september an art kal reported that former deputy assistant secretary of state came forward with a startling allegation. that allegation was that former secretary of state hillary clinton's aides ordered the destruction of documents to prevent congress and the arb from ever seeing them. chairman dowdy called these allegations that the committee would be investigating this. what he failed to admit was that at the time of the chairman's fox news interview republicans had already investigated the maxwell claim and only found evidence against it.

but when democratic staff spoke to that witness he said he didn't recall having been in the document review session that mr. maxwell described. he also denied ever being instructed to flag information and documents that might be unfavorable to the department. he further reported that he never edge gauged in or was ever aware of any destruction of documents. that witness was perfectly willing to talk to democrats and has always been willing to talk to us. he also never asked to be treated as a confidential source. he's never explained that.

as a former prosecutor mr. chairman, you understand that evaluating the credibility of witnesses and our allegations depends on whether the information that they provide can be coobama rated or not. although your staff stated that they learning e.ed nothing, in fact, it was learned that this claim was not substantiated by key witness and to me, that's incredibly telling. unfortunately, because the facts didn't go into the conspiracy narrative, they failed to divulge that information to our side. if our goal is the truth, these interviews should have been conducted jointly with democrats and republicans in the room. facts that do not guilty support allegations that we are investigating should not guilty and cannot be igs norred.

i, for one, and not willing to sit by silently any long r. maybe there is a good reason. they have yet to yield any new information that has not been uncoverered by the previous eight, count them agt, in-depth investigations on the embassy in benghazi. if we sound a little frustrated today, well, it's with good reason. we've had enough of this pursuit and this quest to catch this mythical unicorn. eight sprat investigations where both sides agreed on the rules have been conducted./nñ

if some member of the american public were tried in a court of law, we would say that it was lunacy to expend the time, effort and money to continue to put them through that again. and, yet, here we are again. the american public and the victims themselves deserve better. i'm urging you to adon't the rules that allow for participation of both

republicans and democrats so that we can conduct credible nonpartisan and transparent investigation into this matter. in the time that i have remaining, i want to apologize to our witnesses. we kind of suspected that this is where it would end up. and i hate to say but those who were more cynical have the better argument. with that, i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you, ladies and gentlemen. i can assure i will never give veto power over subpoenas that thinks any entity that thinks no subpoena issish shooued.

mr. smith said you're never going to get it. you're never going to get all the answers. you're never going to get all the documents. that's an internal inconsistency and you're never going to make it out.

concerned, but you're speaking in seasons of the year. you said with some happiness, we've produced two witnesses since the fall. isn't that ironic? that you're not speaking in ternls of days or weeks or months, but you're characterizing timing of the department of state in terms of seasons of the year. now, you've come into this with an opinion, haven't you, based on your past writings.

you wrote a piece about the politicizing the benghazi attacks in october of 2012. isn't that right? let me read the first two paragraphs. i want to get your opinion and how that opinion intersects with today. so, you wrote, the killing of four american patriots in benghazi last month was an act of terror. those four americans representeded the best of our country. they put their lives on the line to advance american interests in a volatile region. they deserve the support of their government back home. paragraph two. instead of getting that support, their deaths are being made used as a partisan attack on president obama, part of a false narrative that the president failed them. what has failed them is our political system. rather than supporting a serious, nonpartisan investigation into what took place and to what went wrong, waiting to get all the facts out, conservatives are trying to affix blame for their debts, for

political advantage. now, i recognize, mr. reuben, there's been a lot of things coming off of capitol hill as it relates to benghazi, but you don't think this is a prif louse partisan investigation, do you? >> chris stevens was friend of mine. i worked on capitol hill. >> i understand that. >> sir, i'm sorry -- >> you think this is a frivolous partisan investigation? >> sir, i'm not commenting on the question of is this a frivolous investigation because you're citing to -- >> accepting the reasonability -- department of state. and i'm interested in a simple question. do you think that this investigation is frivolous and partisan? what's your opinion? >> sir, again, in 2012, after chris stevens was killed and i remember the morning because he was a friend and i remember when his name was announced on the radio and my heart sunk to my feet because i knew chris because he represented the best

of the state department and i'm sorry, sir, his name at that time was not being used in the manner i felt respect. >> mr. reuben, is this frivolous? i'm asking you an opinion about your opinion about this process today. is this frivolous and is this partisan. what's your answer? can you not give an answer? >> the state department is and has been, from secretary on down, happy to comply and work with the committee as the chairman himself has said in a letter as well as in public comment that -- >> mr. reuben, i thought that was an easy layup. i think it was an easy thing to think, no, of course this is serious and not partisan and let's get to it. i find it shocking that you can't give a straight answer to that simple question and you're not going to give it to me, so let's move on. i find myself oftentimes -- language up here, state department and you're in the

business of understanding foreign language and you have misinterpreted the language -- because to come in here and to sort of claim that we are, you're gratified that your cooperation, let me translate for you. he's not pleased with your cooperation, he durant think this is going well and he thinks you're part of the problem. now, you claimed in your original testimony, in this role, i serve as chief liaison to the house, ensuring foreign policy issues, et cetera. so, your testimony is that you're responsible, right? >> that i am the chief liaison that the state department has a significant number of people working on a significant number of issues.

in my job, i convey that, those issues as requested by congress and back and forth in the dialogue with the foreign affairs committee. >> back in november, november 18th, a season ago, this committee requested the documents, the e-mails, communiques and so forth of 11 of the principles on the seventh floor. now, i brought my computer here today and i know it's mott the same thing. i don't want to oversimplify it through the sake of being gratuitous, but when i go to my e-mail, which has thousands in it and i type in something like united airlines, for example, and i sort it, dozens and dozens of things come up within the twinkling of an eye. when can we expect you to use a similar enterprise, is there a date certain that we can rely on because the admonition that you have never said no is ridiculous. you don't have to say no. as a dad, when my kids could come to me, i would say, they'd

ask to do something and i didn't want to do it, i'd say, let me think about it. you're doing the exact same thing. you're saying, we're working on it. remember that scene in raiders of the lost ark at the end when indiana jones goes in and is talking to the government guy and he says, where's the ark? and the government guy says, we have top people working on it. and indiana jones says, what people? and the government guy says, top people. you're the government guy. you're standing up for top people. you've got to bring your game. quouf got to be the expediter. the one that sheds your past opinions about congressional investigations and takes on the job of being an advocate so that we can all get to the bottom of this. the other side doesn't get to argue in the alternative that

it's not moving fast enough and they're being passive aggressive by not participating. it just doesn't work and it's very flat footed. but what we need from you is a disposition of expedition, that is recognizes that a chairman is not happy. don't misinterpret the charm and graciousness of the south. i'm from chicago, we have none of that. and we're trying to be very, very direct and that is to be to be part of the remedy, mr. reuben, to be part of the solution and to get things done. >> as i've said, sir, and as i can assure you as i said in my testimony, we will begin with production of additional documents to the committee within days. we are also needing the guidance from the committee as to its top priority and sequencing. >> no, no. >> the committee had told us -- >> you're making an argument that says these things have to be consecutive requests. they're not. they're concurrent requests.

you can walk and chew gum at the same time. you've got 70,000 employees. so, to make the add machine igs of the committee that you've got to line up single file and you're going to be admitted in, we're going to get you this piece of evidence if you ask the right way and that piece of evidence, come op. that's an old trick. >> we have a record of cooperation with this committee. in recent days, we proactively offered to this committee -- >> a brief. come on. we need documents. 11 people on the seventh floor. we need it promptly and -- >> and we are committed. >> my time is expired. i yield back. >> chair, we'll go to the gentleman from california. >> thank you, mr. chairman. still trying to figure out who's indiana jones in that analogy.

i want to comment on a couple of things and i'm not sure that i have a question for any of the panelists. thank you for spending your time with us today. i'm not sure why you're here, but i appreciate your presence end mr. reuben, looks like your reason for being here is so that we can beat up on you, which i think is grossly unfair to you and the state department considering that if we're going to look to assess reasonability for the slow pace of this investigation, we have to look to ourselves before we look to the state department. given that we didn't ask for a single new document from the state department for the first half year of existence of this select committee, it seems a bit disingenuous to be criticizing

the state department for the pace of our investigation. the entire katrina investigation had finished its work before we requested a document from the state department. and certainly, before this point in our investigation. i think the problem here is not with the pace of the state department's response. the problem all along has been this committee has such an indefinite scope. we don't know exactly what we're looking for. this was a big part of the reason why many democrats had reservation about participating in a committee or forming the committee. as the chairman pointed out. on the vote to form the select committee, originally, only seven democratic members supported it because unclear, other than the political purpose, what was the purpose of this select committee and in the reauthorization, which took place as part of the rules package, not a single democratic supported it. in fact, four republicans voted against the rules package, which reauthorized this committee and a big part of the committee is that even now, eight months later, we still don't know wh we're looking for and this is a

problem not only in terms of this select committee and investigation going on. it's also a problem in terms of which we can expect to get our document requests responded to. if we had a better idea of what we were looking for, of what was in controversy, then we could narrow our requests and i'm sure we could get it complied with with much more lackrity. part of the reason why i think the charter for this select committee is brought as the chairman mentioned is that we didn't really know the purpose of this committee. were we looking at gun running or nonexist ens stand down orders or military assistance that was ordered not to be provided or any number of myths. the challenge has been that on

these issues, it's not as if there was a factual controversy. there wasn't before this committee was established. we've had innumerable investigations and we couldn't narrow in on a particular set of facts in dispute because it really wasn't the fact based dispute as much a political dispute. about how to interpret the events, so the charter was broad and for that reason, it was voted on on the party line basis, but the committee was established and we agreed to participate in the hopes that against our expectation, it would turn out to be different. and initially, it looked that way and i'm grateful the first two hearings were on a very productive course and that is what have we done in terms of recommendations -- where are we in the hunt frs those responses. we haven't narrowed the scope at all. we still don't know what we're looking for, but we know we're looking for something. and it's part of the reason why we feel it's so important we agree on the scope of this investigation, otherwise, it's going to go on forever. it will be a partisan fishing expedition or drawn out to affect the presidential election cycle.

at the end of the day and i want to use an idea suggested by my colleague, we have never asked for veto over subpoenas. what we have asked for is to be notified of them. to have a chance to weigh in. where they're not disputed. our ranking member and chairman can agree and where they are, we ought to have a vote on them. that's not a veto. they have more members than we do. provided their members agree

with the question, with the subpoena request, they should always be improved, but we ought to have an open debate about it to prevent this from being a purely partisan exercise, unless that's the goal. so i think defining the scope is going to be important. ifst going to have credibility. the final point i would make on this is if this investigation doesn't produce a bipartisan report, it will have been a complete failure. it will be a meaningless failure because if we don't produce a bipartisan report at the end of the day, it will have no credibility. so if we're going to invest our time in this, let's make it worthwhile and that means let's make it bipart son. so, that the country and the families will have the confidence of knowing that this was a objective work product.

but the manner in which you do that, whether you're a lawyer, as i am, former u.s. attorney, whether you are a law enforcement official who conducts investigations, whether as my friend from illinois said whether you are a parent trying to get to the bottom of an incident, you have to ask questions. and you have to interview those who were involved. but when the incident involves numerous documents, typically in any investigation, you try to get the documents ahead of time so that you run an efficient, fair investigation when you get to ask witness questions, you have documents in front of you that you can ask them the most relevant questions. and that, i think, is -- has been the problem that we have had is that while you, mr. ruben, have talked about

cooperating, you have required us to prioritize rather than giving us, as ms. roby talked about, the universe of documents. and so things have been, you know, dribbed and drabbed out to this committee over a period of time. and in large part because of that, that is why we have not had interview -- have not interviewed witnesses yet because we've been waiting on the documents for months, and i think when this committee was established, the state department knew, as we said we were going to take the work, the documents from the other committees, we didn't want to duplicate the effort. we wanted to take the documents from the other committee, and it's taken a long time just to get those. what was produced ogr, what was produced to intel? so i just want to say, we are -- have tried in a very thorough, fair manner to try to extract

the documents from the various agencies that have already given the documents to different committees. our recommendations do plan to be very -- we do need to make bipartisan recommendations. i agree with that. but in order to conduct a fair, authorize re, thoughtful, efficient investigation, we have to have the documents first. that's why we focused on the documents. and i have to ask how can we possibly learn from the attacks

if we don't learn about the attacks? we can't make recommendations going forward if we don't have all of the facts about what happened before, during and after the attack. and there are documents that remain to be reviewed. we've learned that. you have recently given us new documents that were never reviewed prior to the establishment of this committee, even though there have been eight committees that received and requested documents in the past, this committee is still getting new documents. and our challenge is we don't know how many more new documents are out there. and how can that be after two years, since this tragic incident, how can it be that we are still getting new documents? and the need to review those documents is anyone who conducts any investigation, that is critical prior to interviewing witnesses. who have yet to tell their stories to congress. so many witnesses have yet to tell their story to congress. and i want to focus on our request to interview those witnesses. our first two requests -- and there will be more requests, mr. ruben -- our first two requests to the state department were to interview 22 state department personnel. 18 of whom were in benghazi in the months prior to the attack. and experienced firsthand the deteriorating security posture as well as the four who were in benghazi. none of those people have been interviewed by congress, to my knowledge, none. and so for the other side to,

you know, really try and capture all that's been done, how is it that 22 people who have direct knowledge have not yet been interviewed by any committees in congress? so there are no asked and answered questions from 22 different people with firsthand knowledge. so we're not seeking to duplicate any work that's already been done. this is new, fresh work that needs to be done. people who were there, people who were in benghazi prior to the attack and actually people who were there during the attack. so would you agree with me, mr. ruben, that firsthand knowledge rather than a summary, a report, another agent coming in and talking to us, firsthand

information is better than secondhand information, would you agree? >> sorry. ma'am, the request for these interviews came on december 4th, i believe, and we spoke quickly with the committee and the staff to try to figure out what the highest priority were, and it was communicated to us that the four diplomatic security agents, ds, and that's where it runs into this complexity of an ongoing investigation to prosecutor potentially the individual that is in custody for those terrorist attacks and the justice department has raised concerns that need to be -- we need to be mindful of. that's the only discussion that we've had related to that. >> thank you. and please note that as a former u.s. attorney and someone who is in charge of victim witness subcommittee for attorney general ashcroft and attorney general gonzalez, i'm very concerned about prosecutions and about victims and witnesses. and let me just share with you that our staff is in communication with the justice department, and we will handle these witnesses appropriately. but if we made a request to you on december 4th of