they you to nhtsa? >> oh, absolutely. because there are occasions where the car is so hazardous that recall ought to be handled immediately. and i would say, also, that this provision that's in the bill was in an earl ler bill about 15 years ago and consumers were extremely upset about it and it was taken out of the bill because the committee came to realize that it was really totally unfair, that the administrator would not be able to inform the public. >> also eliminate azumi understanding original recalls and americans are much more mobile than they have ever been in the past and just because a vehicle is registered in a particular region does not meenl that the vehicle is only driven in that region. all recalls would be carried out on a national basis and prioritize the part of the country when the parts is

limited. so, once again, could you explain how the elimination of the original recall aspect would improve safety? >> well, first of all, original recalls are not in the statute. it's just completely informal thing that the manufacturers about 25, 30 years ago came to the agency said we would like to do a regional recall and the agency said okay and then standard operating procedure because it's much cheaper for the manufacturers, only to recall a small number rather than nationwide. vehicles aren't stationary. that's a silly thing. they go all over the country and the car is fixed because you bought it and lived in florida and moved to minnesota it doesn't make any sense. i think that the agency could prioritize. i think they have the discretion under the law to prioritize and say if you're doing the recall and it's more likely to happen in a particular area because of the weather, then we would prefer you do it that way. >> just briefly, unfortunately,

i have a few second left but in your experience, would eliminating the original recalls but allowing nhtsa to prioritize the aloe case of regional parts, have an affect on nhtsa's ability to execute a recall? >> no, no. it absolutely would not. i think the experience we have with the misbehavior of manufacturers as we have seen in covering up recalls, delaying them, not doing them for years and years and the rest, means that in tnhtsa should be the decision makers. >> thank you. >> the chair recognizes the ranking member of the full committee mr. pallone, five minutes for you questions, please. >> thank you, mr. chairman. section -- my questions are of mr. dotson. section 502 interferes with national program that epa and nhtsa developed to reduce

emissions. mr. dotson, can you briefly explain the national program and what are the goals? >> certainly. the purpose of the -- >> mike? >> can you hear me? >> yeah. >> the purpose of the program is essentially to -- the program is remarkably successful. it's -- it will essentially have the effect of doubling fuel economy or reducing emission of cars and trucks by half. emissions by half by 2025. >> all right. so why is it important to establish standards and how will changing the requirements affect the impact of the chi mat change? >> well, the -- it's now i think a consensus among scientific community and business and faith community it is a serious threat. last year, the panel said that

they have high confidence that unmitigated warming leads to high to very high risk of severe widespread and irreversible impacts globally. food shortages. >> you don't have to talk about climate change. you don't have to convince me and you will not convince my cloegs on the other side. why is it important to establish the standards? >> they're important for the economy. >> okay. >> and the erosion that occurs in the bill, while it might sound small is significant. if you you would award a 3 gram credit, in the first year, last year, 16.5 million cars sold in the united states. you assume they drive 13,000 a miles a year or so, that's 700,000 tons of pollution in one year.

>> all right. now, there are flexibilities built into the national program such as the ability to generate credits for standards that is credits that can be banked or traded and there are air conditioning improvements credits and off cycle credits. can you explain briefly what are the off cycle credits? >> certainly. the off cycle credits are credits for efficiencies they gabe unrelated to the powertrain of the vehicle. so, for example, if a manufacturer used high efficient lighting or heating they recognize the benefits no off cycle credits. the epa and the department of transportation looking at this and found there's quote no consistent established methods or supporting data to establish -- >> in other words, these credits such as air conditioning that don't readily appear to compare

to mileage or reduce emissions, they must have had a positive effect. right? >> yeah. and those effects are demonstrated through data to the agencies. using very high efficiency lighting, your car will have have to generate less electricity and might not show up in the emissions testing. >> okay. but the differences in contrast is that section 502 of this bill would expand the credit system to include the use of advanced technologies. connected vehicle technology. i mean, automakers argued that the technology result in fewer crashes and less congestion. less congestion would they argue -- is there a way to connect lower emissions to individual vehicles? i medium just trying to make the contrast between, you know, the things you are doing now versus what section 502 does and

doesn't seem to me there's any real connection if you will. >> you have put your finger on the issue. there could be, there may be ben filths of reducing emissions and there's an american car on the market today and as an option you can buy lane departure warning technology. well, the highway loss data institute looked at claims of the car with the technology or don't and what they found is there's no reduced claims on car that is have that technology. it is not preventing accidents and not reducing emissions and a concrete example where the bill gives credits to that car even though we have data to help us understand that there are not benefits to it. >> all right. thanks so much. thank you, mr. chairman. >> gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentle lady from california for five

minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. to all of your witnesses for your testimony today. federal law prohibits -- but there's no similar law to stop rental car companies from renting or selling dangerous recall cars that have not been fixed. since the sisters' death near my district in 2004, the major rental companies signed on to a voluntary pledge to not rent out recalled vehicles. while this was a good step forward, these standards are still not enough. just last year, after the pledge was in place, a woman was killed in her rental car when an airbag exploded. as we heard on the first panel, a change in federal law is needed. and that's why i have introduced h.r. 2198 with my colleagues of miss schakowsky, walter jones and mr. butterfield to prevent the working of recalled

vehicles. deexcite the industry and consumer groups and already passed the senate. i also remain baffled that the alliance of automanufacturers and national automobile dealers association actively oppose h.r. 2198 despite discussions of a compromise. for example, the alliance cites a concern about potential loss of use and other liability impacts as a reason for opposition. to address this concern we added a savings clause to the bill stating that nothing in the bill will impact manufacturers' liability or obligations. because of this change, general motors one of the biggest members support h.r. 2198 and honda expressed support for the bill. mr. bainwol, and i'd like a yes or no answer on this. does the alliance oppose h.r. 2198 despite general motors -- >> the alliance does not have

consens consensus. >> thank you. mr. welch -- so you can't yes or no? >> we don't have consensus so -- >> thank you. mr. welch, your organization has expressed concerns of the impact of the dealers. my question to you, when consumers bring their recalled cars to a dealer for repairs, and they need a loaner car, do you think dealers should be able to loan them vehicles with unrepaired safety recalls? i ask you for a yes or no answer. >> if the vehicle has been deemed to be unsafe to drive either by the oems or by nhtsa, we would not put one of those cars in the hands of a consumer. >> so that is a no? you do not think dealers should be able to loan vehicles that have -- with unrepaired safety recalls. >> no, i said if they're unsafe to drive we wouldn't put them out there.

if it involved -- >> you would not loan them then as loaner cars? >> if it's unsafe to drive. if it had a, you know, a door jam sticker or a misprinted number -- >> that is not quite my answer is but i'll just go back to the first panel and nhtsa said that every recall is a safety issue. there are no frivolous recalls. it's a simple question. the vast majority of rental companies agreed to stop. why can't the dealers do the same? >> well, again, i'd like to draw distinction between a recalled vehicle for a noncompliance that may not make it unsafe to drive. >> who's going to determine that? >> well, we rely on nhtsa. >> nhtsa said that every recall is a safety issue. that they don't put recalls out unless it is a safety issue.

>> well, nhtsa has the authority to issue stop drives or make the manufacturers issue stop drive and if they believe that a vehicle is unsafe to drive or the manufacturer does it, they can issue that notice and we would certainly honor it but that doesn't apply to all vehicles subject to recalls. >> i didn't get an answer but my time is out. thank you. >> chair thanks the gentle lady. i do just want to offer the observation, miss schakowsky said she drives a hybrid vehicle. your chairman drives a hybrid, also. i have no problem at all if you want to make future vehicles safer, if you want to warn me departing a lane that there is a car, motorvehicle, tricycle in the other lane, i would like to know that vfrgs and i'll give up a couple carbon credits to have that available in the next version of the car i buy. seeing that -- >> mr. chairman? i'm sorry.

may i add an addendum? not a question. but i would like to enter into the record and i neglected to say -- >> does the gentle lady have a unanimous consent request? >> yes, please. >> you're recognized. >> i wanted to enter into the record, a letter of rachel and jackie's mother urging passage of h.r. 2198, two letters of general motors indicating the support of h.r. 2198 and on behalf of a colleague that needed to leave miss schakowsky. >> without objection, so ordered. >> thank you. >> seeing there are no further members wishing to ask questions, i would like to thank all of the witnesses for being here today. i would like to include the following documents to be submitted for the record but unanimous consent. a letter the autocare association, a letter from the

american chemistry council, a letter from the motor vehicle administrato administrator. motor and equipment manufacturer's association, a statement from the environmental protection agency, pursuant to committee rules, i remind members they have ten business days to submit additional questions for the record. i ask witnesses to submit responses within ten business days upon receipt of the questions. without objection, subcommittee will stand adjourned. >> could i ask i make a correction to my testimony? unanimous consent to do that? >> yes. i'll be happy to hear the correction of the testimony. >> thank you very much. >> you won't say it today? >> i won't bother you now. >> we're left wondering about the correction. committee stands adjourned. >> that was close. i have 2 million and 200,000 in my testimony by mistake.

>> would it be safe to say you were fully engaged that evening? >> that is certainly safe to say, congresswoman. >> thank you. i yield back.

>> the gentlelady from california yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from ohio. >> you just gave a long answer, madam secretary, to ms. sanchez about what you heard that night, but nowhere in there did you mention a video, because there was never a video-inspired protest in benghazi. victoria new land, your spokesperson at the state department, hours after the attacks said this: in cairo police have removed demonstrators. benghazi, you have weapons and explosions. cairo, you have spray paint and rocks. one hour before the attack in benghazi, chris stevens walks a diplomat to the front gate. the ambassador didn't report a demonstration, because it never happened. an eyewitness in the command center that night on the ground said no protest, no de >> no protest no demonstration.

the attack started at 3:42 eastern time. at 4:06 and officer went out across the state department and said this. mission under attack. armed men, shots fired. explosions heard. evidence wasidenc the best that for chris stevens not to report it. mr. hicks said if it had been reported, he would have been out the back door within minutes. there was a backache. everything points to a terrorist attack. we heard from mr. pompeii about the long history of terrorist violence in the country. , they go on five

tv shows is through this. benghazi was a spontaneous reaction at the consequence of a video. a statement that we know is false. do not take mother world for it. here's what others have said. rice was off the reservation. not worry about politics. the stigmas are made by the people who work for you. the actual experts on libby in the state department. so how there is no evidence for video inspired protest. where did the false to start? 10:00 tonight of the attack he said some have thought to justify this behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the internet. there was no evidence. at 10:08 before the tech is over

when tyrone woods and glenn doherty are still on the roof of the annex fighting for their lives the official statement of the state department blames a video. why? on september day 11 as you mentioned there was a very large protest against our embassy in cairo. .rotesters breached the walls they tore down the american flag , it was of great concern to us because the inflammatory video had been shown on egyptian television which has a broader reach then just inside egypt. , iyou look at what i said referred to the video and a specific way i said some have sucked to justify the attacks because of the video i used

those words deliberately. not to ascribe a motive to every attacker but as a warning to those across the region that there was no justification for further attacks, and in fact during the course of that week we had many attacks that were all about the video. we had people breached the walls of our embassies to other countries. non-americans dying and. that is what was going on. >> i appreciate that most of the attacks were after the attack in benghazi. you mentioned cairo. she said if pressed, by the press to the connection between cairo and benghazi she said this there is no connection. here's what troubles me, your

experts knew the truth, your spokesperson to the truth great cakes to the truth what troubles me more is that i think you knew the truth. own to show you a few things. look at the e-mail he sent to your family here that you said "at 11:00 that night one hour after you told the american people that it was a video you said two officers were killed and benghazi by an al qaeda like group. tell the american people one thing and you tell your family another story. also come on the night of the attack had a call with the president of libya here's a he said to him. also rhea is claiming responsibility. interesting. one of the guys arrested actually belonged to that group. significantly, the next day within 24 hours you had a conversation with the prime minister. you told in this. and libya hadtack

nothing to do with the film. not a a planned attack protest. i'll read the overtime. we know, not we think not it might be we know the attack and libya had nothing to do with the film it was a planned attack not a protests. state department experts knew the truth. you knew the truth. that is not what the american people got. again, the american people want to know why. why didn't you tell the american people what you told egyptian prime minister? if you look at the statement that i made a clearly so that it was an attack. i also said there were some who try to justify. video >>sis of the calling it an attack is like saying the skies blue. of course it was an attack. theant to know the truth statement you sent out with a

statement on benghazi and you said it was vicious behavior by something on the internet. if that is not motive i do not know what is. that is how the american people thought. , there was a lot of conflicting information that we are trended make sense of their situation is fluid and fast-moving. there is a claim of responsibility. when i talked to the egyptian prime minister, i said this is a claim of responsibility by all sharia. affiliatedthat was with al qaeda. , the nextfter that theyr the next morning, retracted their claim of responsibility. i think if you look at what all , we were trying to do in the position of trying to make sense of incoming information and watch the way the intelligence community tried

to make sense of it. there was not conflicting information the day of the attack. your press secretary said if pressed, there is no connection between cairo and benghazi. you are the one who muddied it up, not the information. >> here's what i think is going -- let me show you a much slide. this is from your press person. the subject line reads this. the statement on libya, e-mail says this is what they were talking about. author of the talking points memo. this is a 10:35. 27 minutes after your statement 27 minutes after you told everybody that the video while americans are so fighting because the attack is so going

on your top people are talking politics. it seems to me you had three options. like youell the truth do with your family like you did with the president like you did with the egyptian prime minister. call it a terrorist attack. you could say we are not quite sure. we're not really know for sure. i do not think the evidence is all there. but, you picked the third option you picked the video narrative. you could the one with no evidence. you did it because it libya was supposed to be this great success story for the obama white house and the clinton state department. a key campaign thing that year was that bin laden is dead. al qaeda is on the run. now, you have a terrorist attack. it is 56 days before an election.

you can live with a protest about a video, that will not hurt you. but a terrorist attack will. you cannot be square with the american people. tell your family is a terrorist attack. not the american people, tell the president of libya it is not a terrorist attack, not the american people. until the egyptian prime minister is a terrorist attack, which cannot tell your own people. madam secretary, americans can live with the fact that good people sometimes give their life for this country they do not like it they mourn for those families they pray for those families that they can live with it. but they cannot take what they cannot live with is when their government is not square with them i yield back. >> you are welcome to answer the question. i wrote an entire chapter

about this in my book hard choices come i'll be glad to send it to you because i think the insinuation that you are does a great disturbance to the hard work that people in the state department intelligence community, the defense community white house do during the course of very confusing and difficult days. there is no doubt that we did the best we could with the information that we had at the time. if you would go back and read what i said, i was very careful and saying that some have whoght to justify, the man has been arrested as one of the ringleaders for benghazi is reported to have said it was the video that motivated him. none of us can speak to the individual motivations of those terrorists who overran our

compound and to attack our cia annex. there were a number of different motivations. i think the intelligence community which took the lead on trying to sort this out, as they should have, went through a series of interpretations and analysis. we were all guided by that. we were not making it up. we were trying to get it and make sense of it. when i was speaking to the egyptian prime minister, or any of examples you showed we were told that they took credit for it. it wasn't until 24 hours later that they retracted taking credit for it. we also knew, because my responsibility was for what was happening throughout the region. i needed to be talking about the video, i needed to be putting other governments and other

people on notice that we were not going to let them get away with attacking us as they did in two other countries. there were thousands of demonstrators only a because of the video, breaching the walls of our embassy, burning down the i was callingl everybody i could get. we finally got the american guard to break it up. that is what i was doing during the difficult hours. you said my insinuation, i'm not insinuating anything, i'm reading what you said. you said that we know the attack had nothing to do with the film. differentstly behavior. why do not you just speak plain? .> if -- i did if you look at my statement, i

did state clearly, i said it again in more detail the next morning, as did the president. that it does not fit your narrative, i can only tell you what the facts were, and the facts as democratic members have pointed they support this process that was going on. it is very much hard to do it these days. and it's very much harder to do it these days than it used to be, because you have to monitor social media, for goodness's sakes. that's where the ansar al sharia claim took place. the intelligence committee did the best job they could and we all did our best job to try to figure out what was going on and then convey that to the american people. >> the gentleman's time has expired. the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. schiff. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

madam secretary. we're almost at the end of the first round of questions. i'll have an opportunity, then the chairman will, before we have a break, just to let you know where we are in the scheme of things. i am the to take a moment to -- i want to take a moment to think about where we are in this round, and where this began, with the chairman's statement. the chairman said at the outset of the hearing that the american people were entitled to the truth, the truth about what happened in benghazi, the truth about the security there, the truth about what happened after the attack. the implication of this of course is that the american premium don't know the truth, that this is the first version we have ever had. the reality is we've had eight visa investigations. we've gone through this endlessly. if we look at the documentary record, we have the arb report.

we have the report of the armed services committee led by republican buck mckean which debunked the standdown order allegation. we have the report of the committee on government reform. we have the report of the senate homeland security committee. we have the report of the house foreign affairs committee. we have the gop conference's own report. we have the report of the intelligence committee on which i serve. now, bear in mind, these aren't with their accompanying exhibits or the classified stuff, because it would be up through the ceiling if i included them. this is the report of our committee. this is what $4.7 million of taxpayer money buys you. this is what 17 months of investigation have shown. now, the chairman said, and he's a very good lawyer and a good former prosecutor, we have a lot

of former prosecutors here on the panel, he gave you a recitation of the number of witnesses and the number of documents. there are too many good prosecutors on this panel not to know that when a lawyer describes the metrics of the success of an investigation by the sheer number of people they've talked to or the volume of documents, it says nothing about the substance of what they've learned, there's a problem. and the reality there's a probl. and the reality is that after 17 month, we have nothing new to tell the families. we have nothing new to tell the american people. we have discovered nothing that alters the core conclusions of the eight investigations that went on before. my colleagues have been saying quite often this week with amazing regularity that this is a fact-centric investigation. and i agree because i would like

to talk about president facts thatcentric to this investigation. because while the american people are entitled to the truth about benghazi they're also entitled to the truth about our committee. fact: what gave rise to your appearance today was many months ago a group called the stop hillary pac which aired an offensive ad during the democratic debate showing the tombstone of mr. stevens among other things delivered 264,000 signatures demanding you appear before us. fact: it was the next day the majority approached us to have you come before this committee. fact: after the "new york times" issued its story in march, this committee canceled all other hearin hearings except for a hearing with a witness named "clinton." fact: we abandoned our plans to bring in the secretary of defense and the head of the cia. fact: we haven't had a single hearing from the department of

defense in 17 months. fact: of the 70,000 pages of documents obtained by the select committee, the only documents that the chairman has chose on the release publicly are your e-mails with sidney blumenthal. fact: of the 32 press releases that have been issued since march of this year, 27 of them are about you or the state department and five are about everything else. fact: as recently as last week the chairman issued a 13-page letter which is alleges you risk it had lives of people by sending an e-mail that contained the name of a classified cia source. fact: cia told us there was nothing in that e-mail that was classified nor was the name of that person whose who is well known to many. the chairman has said that this

will be the final, definitive report. one thing i think we can tell already -- there will be nothing final about this report. wherever we finish, if ever we finish, the problem we've had as a committee is we don't know what we're looking for. but there won't be a final conclusion. there won't be anything definitive about the work of this committee because unlike the accountability review board that operated in a non-partisan way, it's unlikely the majority here will even consult with us on what their final report looks like. those who want to believe the worst will believe the worst. those that want to believe that this is a partisan exercise will believe it. as i said, from the beginning of the investigation the only way this committee will add any central to what's gone on before is if we can find a way to work together and reach a common conclusion but it's plain that's not their object.

the chairman might say "ignore the words of our republican leadership, ignore the words of our republican members, ignore the words of our own gop investigator. judge us by our actions." but it is the actions of the committee that are the most damaging of all because they have been singly focused on you. let me ask you briefly, because i want to expand on just the -- what i think is the core theory here. i want to give you a chance to respond to it. as a prosecutor, we're taught every case should have a core theory and the evidence and the witnesses go back to that core theory. and i've wrestled as i've listened to my colleagues today, as i have over 17 months. what is the core theory of their zmas wh case? what are they trying to convey? i have to say i think it's confusing. i think the core theory is this -- that you deliberately interfered with security in benghazi and that resulted in people dying. i think that is the case they want to make and notwithstanding

how many investigations we've had that have found no merit to that, that is the impression they wish to give. i have to say, i'm confused today because my colleague pointed to an e-mail suggesting you weren't aware we had a presence in benghazi so if you weren't aware we had a presence i don't know how you could have interfered with the security there. but nonetheless, i do think that's what they're aiming at. i know the ambassador was someone you helped pick. i know the ambassador was a friend of yours and i wonder if you would like to comment on what it's like to be the subject of an allegation that you deliberately interfered with security that cost the life of a friend. >> congressman, it's very personally painful accusation. it has been rejected and disproven by non-partisan, dispassionate investigators but nevertheless having it continued to be bandied around is deeply

distressing to me. you know, i've -- i would imagine i've thought more about what happened than all of you put together. i've lost more sleep than all of you put together. i have been wracking my brain about what more could have been done or should have been done. and so when i took responsibility, i took it as a challenge and an obligation to make sure before i left the state department that what we could learn -- as i'm sure my predecessors did after beirut and after nairobi and dar es salaam and after all the other attacks on our facilities, i'm sure all of them -- republican and democrat alike -- especially where there was loss of american life said, okay, what must we do better? how do we protect the men and

women that we send without weapons, without support from the military into some of the most dangerous places in the world? and so i will continue to speak out and do everything ache from whatever position i'm in to honor the memory of those we lost and to work as hard as i know to try to create more understanding and cooperation between the state department, our diplomats, our development professionals from usaid and the congress so that the congress is a partner with us. as was the case in previous times. i would like us to get back to those times, congressman. whereas i think one of you said beirut we lost far more

americans, not once but twice within a year. there was no partisan effort. people rose above politics. a democratic congress worked with a republican administration to say "what do we need learn?" out of that came the legislation for the accountability review board. similarly, after we lost more americans for the bombings in east africa, again, reps and democrats worked together and said "what do we need to do better?" so i'm -- i'm an optimist, congressman, i'm hoping that will be the outcome of this and every other effort so that we really do honor not only those we lost but all those who right as we speak are serving in dangerous places representing the values and the interests of the american people. >> thank you, madam secretary. >> the gentleman from california yields back.

i'm going to address a couple things he said and then recognize myself. because he invoked the family members of the four, madam secretary and partially this will be for your benefit also i want to specifically address the family members that are here. there are no theory of the prosecution, mr. schiff, because there is no prosecution. there's a very big difference between a prosecution where you already have reached a conclusion and you're just trying to prove it to people. this is an investigation which is why it's so sad that nowhere in that stack that you just put up there were the e-mails of secretary clinton, the e-mails of the ambassador, 50,000 pages worth of documents, eyewitnesses, that's the real tragedy. to the family and the friends. when you're told there have been seven previous investigations and an arv, you should immediately ask "why did you miss so many witnesses? why did you miss so many documents?" this is not a prosecution, mr. schiff. you and i are both familiar with

them. i've reached no conclusions and i would advise you to not reach any conclusions, either, until we reach the end. there are 20 more witnesses so i'll agree not to reach any conclusions if you'll do the same. with that, madam secretary, regardless of where he ranked in the order of advisors, it is indisputed that a significant number of your e-mails were to or from a sidney blumenthal. now, he did not work for the state department. he didn't work for the u.s. government at all. he wanted to work for the department but the white house said no to him. do you recall who specifically at the white house rejected sidney blumenthal? >> no, i do not. >> after he was turned down for a job at the state department by the white house, he went to work where? >> i think he had a number of consulting contracts with different entities. >> well, if he had a number of them, do you recall any of them? >> i know he did some work for my husband. >> well, he worked for the clinton foundation.

>> that's correct. >> he worked for media matters. >> i'm sure he did. >> he worked for correct the record. >> i'm sure he did. >> when you were asked about sidney blumenthal you said he was an old friend who sent you unsolicited e-mails which you passed on in some instances because you wanted to hear from people outside what you called the bubble. we will ignore for second whether or not sidney blumenthal is outside the bubble but i wanted to ask you a couple things. because he was an old fwloend knew nothing about libya, was critical of president obama and others that you work with, loved to send you political and image advice, had business interests in libya which he not only alerted you to but solicited your help for and you often forwarded his e-mails but

usually on after you redacted out any identifier so nobody knew where the information was coming from. what does the word "unsolicited" mean to you? >> it means that i do not ask him to send me the information that he sent me and as i have previously stated some of it i found interesting, some of it i do not. some of it i forwarded, some of it i do not. i do not know anything about any business interest. i thought that just as i said previously newspaper articles, journalists of which he is one, a former journalist, had some interesting insights and so we took them on board and evaluated them and some were helpful and others were not. >> we're going to get to all the points you just made but i want to start with your public comment that these e-mails were unsolicited. you wrote to him "another

keeper, thanks and please keep them coming." "greetings from kabul and thanks for keeping this stuff coming." "any other info about it" "what are you hearing now?" "got it. will follow up tomorrow. anything else to convey?" now, that one is interesting because that was the very e-mail where mr. blumenthal was asked you to intervene on behalf of a disease deal he was pursuing in libya. what did you mean by "what are you hearing now?" >> i have no idea, congressman. they started out unsolicited and, as i said, some were of interest, i passed them on and some were not so he continued to provide me information that was made available to him. >> i don't want to parse words and i don't want to be hypertechnical because it's not a huge point but it's an important point.

you didn't say they started off unsolicited. you said they were unsolicited. >> well they were unsolicited. but obviously i did respond to some of them. >> well -- >> and i'm sure that encouraged him. >> anything else to convey? what are you hearing now? i'm going to paris tomorrow night will meet thenc lead joers th -- leaders so this useful. still don't have blackberry coverage post-iran so i have to resort to my new ipad. let me know if you received this. we'll talk about the new ipad in a little bit. here's another one. "this report is in part a response to your questions." that's an e-mail from him to you. "this vort in part a response to your questions. there will be further information in the next day." if you're the one asking him for information, how does that square with the definition of "unsolicited"? >> i said it began that way, mr. chairman, and i will add that both chris stevens and gene

cretz found some of the information interesting. far more than i could because they knew some of the characters who were being mention and they were the ones, the kind of persons with the expertise that i asked to evaluate to see whether there was any useful information. >> we'll get to that in a second. before you give mr. blumenthal too much credit you agree he didn't write a single one of those cables or memos he sent you. >> i'm sorry, what? >> he didn't where write a single one of those cables or memos. >> i don't know who wrote them. he sent them to me. >> would you be surprised to know not a single one was from him. >> i don't know where he got the information that he was sending to me. >> did you ask? you're send megavery specific detailed intelligence, what is your source? that seems like a good question. >> i learned later he was talking to or sharing information from former american intelligence official zbs s. >> by the name of -- >> who wrote those cables. >> i don't know, mr. chairman.

>> you had this information passed on to others is but at least on one occasion you miss abedin "can you print without any identifiers?" why would you want his name removed? >> because i thought it would be more important to just look at the substance and to make a determination as to whether or not there was anything to it. >> well, don't people have a right to know who the source of the information so they can determine credibility? >> but he wasn't, as you just said, the source of the information. >> but you didn't know that madam secretary. and that's what you just said. >> no, mr. chairman, i said that i knew that he didn't have the sources to provide that information. i knew he was getting it from somewhere else, whether he knew a lot of journalists, he knew others in washington, it could have been a variety of people! if you're going to determine credibility, don't you want to know the source? >> well, it wasn't credibility so much as trying to follow the threads that were mentioned about individuals and as i already stated, some of it was useful and some of it was not.

>> well, did the president know mr. blumenthal was advising you? >> he wasn't advising me. mr. chairman -- >> did he know he was your most prolific e-mailer that we have found on the subjects of libya and benghazi? >> that's because i didn't do most of my work about libya on e-mail. >> that's fair. i'm not challenging that, madam secretary. i am not challenging that. all i'm telling you is that documents show he was your most prolific e-mailer on libya and benghazi. and did the president, the same white house that said "you can't hire him" did he know he was advising you? >> he was not advising me and i have no reason to have ever mentioned that or know that the president knew that. >> all right. i want to draw your attention to an e-mail about libya from mr. blumenthal to you dated april 20 2011 and it will be exhibit 67. "this is informative.

shall we pass this on -- then in pa parentheticals, unidentified -- to the white house?" why would wow take that off? >> a lot of information i reviewed over the yours you often don't have the source of if intelligence. you look at the intelligence and you try to determine whether or not it is credible. whether it can be followed up on. >> well, i'm going to accept the fact that you and i come from different backgrounds because i can tell you that an unsourced comment could never be uttered in any courtroom. >> but we're not talking about courtrooms, mr. chairman, we're talking about intelligence. >> no, we're talking about credibility and the ability to assess who a source is and whether or not that source has ever been to libya, knows anything about libya, or has business interests in libya, all of which would be important if you were going to determine the credibility which i think is why you probably took his information off of what you sent

to the white house . ? one e-mail he wrote this. "tyler knows him well and says he's a mean vicious little -- i'm not going to say the word but he did. this is an e-mail from blumenthal to you about the president and secretary of defense. here's another one about president's national security advisor. frankly, tom donelan's babbling rhetoric about narratives on a phone briefing of reporters on march 10 has inspired derision among foreign policy analysts here and abroad. and here's another from what you

say is your old friend sidney blumenthal. this is a quote from him. "i would say obama" and by the way he left the president part out. "i would say obama appears to be intent on seizing defeat from the jaws of victory. he and his political cronies in the white house and chicago are to say the least unenthusiastic about regime change in libya. obama's lukewarm and self-contradicting statements have produced what is at least for the moment operational paralysis. i think that may give us a better understanding of why the white house may have told you you cannot hire hiblumenthal bl been to libya, had no expertise in libya, was critical of the president and others that you worked with, shared polling data with you on the intervention in libya, gave you political advice on how to take credit for libya

all the while working for the clinton foundation and some pseudo news entities. and madam secretary, he had unfittered access to you. and he used that access at least on one occasion to ask you to intervene on behalf of a business venture. do you recall that? >> you know, mr. chairman, if you don't have any friends who say unkind things privately i con gooj late you. but from my perspective -- >> i'd like to think i'd correct them. >> i don't know what this line of questioning does to help us get to the bottom of the deaths of four americans. >> i'll be happy to help you understand that, madam secretary. >> but i want to reiterate what i said to congresswoman sanchez. these were originally unsolicited. you've just said that perhaps the main if not the exclusive author was a former intelligence

agent for our country who rose to the highest levels of the cia and who was given credit for being one of the very few who pointed out that the intelligence used by the bush administration to go to war in iraq was wrong so i think that, you know, the sharing of information from an old friend that i do not take at face value, that i sent on to those who were experts is something that, you know, makes sense but it was certainly not in any way the primary source of or the predominant understanding that we had of what was going on in libya and what we needed to be doing. >> well, madam secretary, i'm out of time and we'll pick this back up the next round but i'll let you know ahead of time why it's relevant. it's relevant because our ambassador was asked to read and

respond sidney blumenthal's drivel. it was sent to him to read and react to, in some instances on the very same day he was asking for security. so i think it's imminently fair to asked why sidney blumenthal had unfittered access to you, madam secretary, with whatever he wanted to talk about and there's not a single solitary e-mail to or from you to or from ambassador stevens. i think that that is fair and we'll take that up. >> will the gentleman yield? >> sure. >> thank you. mr. chairman, you've made several inaccurate statements over the past month as you have tried to defend against multiple republican admissions that the select committee has been wasting millions of tax dollars to damage secretary clinton's bid for president. on sunday you made another inaccurate statement during your appearance on "face the nation" and it's being taken up here.

here's what you said, and i quote "there are other folks who may have equities in her e-mails and there may be other entities who are evaluating her e-mails. but my interest in them is solely making sure that i get everything i'm entitled to so that i can do my job. the rest of it, classification, clinton foundation, you name it, i have zero interest in it. which is why you haven't seen me send a subpoena related to it or interview a single person other than brian fabiano because i need to know that the record is complete." and i'm going back to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. >> i'm waiting -- >> mr. chairman, let me finish. >> i'm coming, just wait. >> i'm waiting on the inaccurate statement. >> i'm getting there. >> well, we have to take a break. >> well it's not going to take a long. you took up four minutes over so let me have three. >> i've let everybody go over,

including you. >> thank you very much. you issued a subpoena to sidney blumenthal on may 19, 2015, compelling him to appear for a deposition on june 25, 2015. you issued the subpoena unilaterally without giving select committee members the opportunity to debate or vote on it. you sent two armed marshals to serve the subpoena on mr. blumenthal's wife at their home without ever having sent him a request to participate voluntarily which he would have done. then, mr. chairman, you personally attended mr. bumen all that blumenthal's deposition, you person personally asked him about the clinton foundation and directed your staff to ask questions about the clinton foundation which they did more than 50 times. knees these facts directly contradict the statements you made on national television. >> no, sir, with all due respect, they do not. we just heard e-mail after e-mail after e-mail about libya

and benghazi that sidney blumenthal sent to the secretary of state. i don't care if he sent it by morse code, carrier pigeon, smoke signals, the fact that he [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] : there was non credible threat. it will air in its entirety on saturday and sunday. coming today, washington journal is live with reacted to hillary clinton's testimony. in the u.s. house debates a aboutt reduction bill repealing part of the affordable care act. making ad cruz

campaign stop in council bluffs, iowa. today's program is dedicated to the benghazi hearing. us, or call in, tweet comment on the c-span facebook page. hillary clinton: i would imagine i thought more but what happens in all of you put together. i have lost more sleep than all of you put together. i have been racking my brain about what more could have been done. or should have been done. it is the day after, and there is plenty of reaction to hillary clinton's testimony on benghazi. yesterday,r 11 hours and we would like to hear from you now. what does it all mean? you will devote the entire washington journal on this friday to benghazi