[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HEARING 3
=======================================================================
HEARING 3
before the
SELECT COMMITTEE ON
THE EVENTS SURROUNDING
THE 2012 TERRORIST
ATTACK IN BENGHAZI
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JANUARY 27, 2015
__________
Printed for the use of the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding
the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi
Available on the Internet:
www.fdsys.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
93-579 PDF WASHINGTON : 2015
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800;
DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE on BENGHAZI
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina, Chairman
LYNN WESTMORELAND, Georgia ELIJAH CUMMINGS, Maryland
JIM JORDAN, Ohio Ranking Minority Member
PETER ROSKAM, Illinois ADAM SMITH, Washington
MIKE POMPEO, Kansas ADAM SCHIFF, California
MARTHA A. ROBY, Alabama LINDA SAANCHEZ, California
SUSAN BROOKS, Indiana TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
Professional Staff
Phil Kiko, Staff Director
Susanne Sachsman Grooms, Minority Staff Director
HEARING 3
----------
TUESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2015
House of Representatives,
Select Committee
on Benghazi,
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:31 a.m., in room
HVC-210, Capitol Visitor Center, Hon. Trey Gowdy (chairman of
the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Gowdy, Brooks, Jordan, Pompeo,
Roby, Roskam, Westmoreland, Cummings, Saanchez, Schiff, and
Smith.
Staff Present: Philip G. Kiko, Staff Director and General
Counsel; Chris Donesa, Deputy Staff Director; Dana Chipman,
Chief Investigative Counsel; Sharon Jackson, Deputy Chief
Counsel; Craig Missakian, Deputy Chief Counsel; Carlton Davis,
Investigator; Luke Burke, Investigative Detailee; Brien
Beattie, Investigator; Paige Oneto, Clerk; Paul Bell, Minority
Press Secretary; Linda Cohen, Minority Senior Professional
Staff; Shannon Green, Minority Counsel; Susanne Grooms,
Minority Staff Director; Jennifer Hoffman, Minority
Communications Director; Peter Kenny, Minority Senior Counsel;
Laura Rauch, Minority Senior Professional Staff; Dan Rebnord,
Minority Professional Staff; Kendal Robinson, Minority
Detailee; Mone Ross, Minority Staff Assistant; Heather Sawyer,
Minority Chief Counsel; and Brent Woolfork, Minority Senior
Professional Staff.
Chairman Gowdy. Welcome, everyone. This is the third
hearing of the Benghazi Committee. The committee will come to
order. And 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 the rules and practices 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.
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 roadmap or a scope of the
investigation, or who 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 are 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 witnesses.
And we have had some success. The State Department provided
the committee with 25,000 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
than 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 concluding
its work expeditiously.
And, frankly, it should not take a public hearing to make
progress on these requests. Our hearings 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 are
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
have gotten that you are 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 no trickery and no artifice. I want to know when the
agencies are going to comply with the requests 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.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Gowdy not supplied]
Mr. Cummings. 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 am a bit
sad to report today that there are major, major problems with
this committee and its work. Democratic members have grave
concerns about the partisan 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 is fighting for--to make sure that we come out
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 the 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, Ty Woods, and Glen Doherty 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 is 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.''
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
discover that the chairman and his 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 the 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 are
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 with witnesses. The way to honor the four
Americans killed in Benghazi is to seek the truth, 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 asked the chairman to
hold a vote on basic committee rules. We just want some rules.
We wanted 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 had 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 there are those who will
say that, ``Well, maybe it is not in their rules.'' Well, 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 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 pursuit of the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
With that, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cummings not supplied]
Chairman Gowdy. Mr. Rubin, you are recognized for your 5-
minute opening statement.
STATEMENTS OF JOEL M. RUBIN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR
HOUSE AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE; AND NEAL HIGGINS,
DIRECTOR OF CONGRESSIONAL AFFAIRS, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
STATEMENT OF JOEL M. RUBIN
Mr. Rubin. Thank you, Chairman Gowdy, Ranking Member
Cummings, and distinguished members of the committee. It is 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 Rubin, and I am 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 the
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 have served in the Federal Government for more than a
decade, including both as a Hill staffer 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 is why I am
here before you today.
As you know, the State Department has a strong record of
cooperation with your committee, something which we are proud
of and something that you yourself recently acknowledged, Mr.
Chairman--statements for which we are grateful. This is
consistent with our work prior to this committee's formation,
as the Department has provided nearly 2 years of steady
cooperation with Congress on Benghazi by responding to requests
from 10 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 congressional
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 requests for documents
and interviews. Our progress has been slowed somewhat by the
holidays and the briefing we provided to you on January 13th,
but also by the breadth and time span 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 is 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 address each request in
the order that you identify as most important to you, as the
committee most recently did in December.
Turning to your December requests 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 heroically during the attacks. We understand
the committee's interest in interviewing these agents, and I am
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 have 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 are 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 document and interview
requests. 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.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Rubin follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED]
Chairman Gowdy. Mr. Higgins.
STATEMENT OF NEAL HIGGINS
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 committee's requests
to date. Specifically, since last June, CIA has certified the
committee's secure workspaces, granted access to sensitive
compartmented information for 15 members of the committee
staff, reviewed roughly 40,000 pages of State Department
documents for CIA equities, and, through the Director of
National Intelligence, provided the committee with finished
intelligence products relating 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 for congressional
oversight. 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.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Higgins follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED]
Chairman Gowdy. The chair will now recognize himself for
questions.
Mr. Rubin, have you read the House resolution?
Mr. Rubin. Yes, sir, I have.
Chairman Gowdy. What is your understanding of what this
committee has been asked to do?
Mr. Rubin. My understanding is that the committee has been
asked to review the incidents related to the Benghazi attacks
in all of the--as you described at the beginning, in all of the
aspects that it seeks.
Chairman Gowdy. So your understanding is that we have been
asked to look at all policies, decisions, and activities that
contributed to the attacks?
Mr. Rubin. Certainly that is our understanding. And we
support providing information related to that request.
Chairman Gowdy. That affected our ability to prepare for
the attacks?
Mr. Rubin. Well, if that is the--if that is the--ultimately
the decision----
Chairman Gowdy. Well, you have read it, right? I mean, you
have read the resolution, right? You are not disagreeing with
my interpretation of the resolution, are you?
Mr. Rubin. No, I am not. And we defer to the committee's
direction on how it wants to proceed.
Chairman Gowdy. Including executive-branch efforts to
identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of these
attacks? Did you read that in the resolution?
Mr. Rubin. Sir, I don't have it in front, so I can't quote
it verbatim.
Chairman Gowdy. I will be thrilled to get you a copy of the
resolution.
Mr. Rubin. Sure.
Chairman Gowdy. For the meantime, you are just going to
have to take my word that it also says ``executive-branch
efforts to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of
these attacks.'' That is in the resolution.
Can you tell me specifically how our interviewing witnesses
is going to jeopardize the prosecution?
Mr. Rubin. Sir, the Department of Justice has been clear
with----
Chairman Gowdy. I am asking you. It was in your opening
statement. I am 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?
Mr. Rubin. Sir, no one has said that Congress cannot
interview the witnesses.
Chairman Gowdy. You just said that it would jeopardize an
ongoing prosecution, and I just asked you specifically how.
Mr. Rubin. 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--
--
Chairman Gowdy. Specifically who told you that?
Mr. Rubin. My colleagues within the State Department who
work on this on a daily basis.
Chairman Gowdy. I am looking for a name. Because I have to
clear up this misconception that simply talking to a witness
who has already talked to three other investigatory bodies,
that somehow or another Congress cannot talk to these
witnesses, even though apparently everybody else can. I am
curious how that jeopardizes an ongoing prosecution.
Mr. Rubin. Sir, I am not an attorney, I am 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 has told us that this could have an impact, and that
they would like to have a conversation with you and your
committee about that.
Chairman Gowdy. Do you believe that Congress has the
constitutional authority to provide oversight?
Mr. Rubin. Every day I do that with my job. Yes, sir.
Chairman Gowdy. So you do agree with that. What is your
interpretation of the phrase ``all policies, decisions, and
activities''?
Mr. Rubin. In what context?
Chairman Gowdy. In any context. How about contributed to
the attacks? What is your understanding of all policies, all
decisions, all activities?
Mr. Rubin. 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----
Chairman Gowdy. Mr. Rubin, do you----
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. And the welfare of these agents in
an ongoing investigation.
Chairman Gowdy. I want to ask you something. 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----
Mr. Rubin. Certainly.
Chairman Gowdy. To do either of those things?
Mr. Rubin. Certainly.
Chairman Gowdy. Will you also stipulate that you can talk
to witnesses while preserving their identity and not
jeopardizing an ongoing prosecution?
Mr. Rubin. I am confident that in the conversations between
the Justice Department and the committee that those modalities
can be discussed. I am not----
Chairman Gowdy. Mr. Rubin----
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. The expert on how----
Chairman Gowdy. Mr. Rubin, do you see the Justice
Department at this hearing?
Mr. Rubin. No, sir.
Chairman Gowdy. Do you know why they are not at this
hearing?
Mr. Rubin. No, sir.
Chairman Gowdy. Because we don't have any issues with them.
That is why they are 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.
Mr. Rubin. 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 are open to.
We have never said no.
Chairman Gowdy. Well, and I appreciate that. I appreciate
that. But I want to make sure that you 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?
Mr. Rubin. Sir, I understand----
Chairman Gowdy. That is not that trick question.
Mr. Rubin. I know it is not a trick question. And I
understand the point, and this is why we are here.
Chairman Gowdy. Well, if you understand the point----
Mr. Rubin. This is why we have provided the quantity of
documents and worked in collegial terms----
Chairman Gowdy. Mr. Rubin, we are going to get to the
quantity of documents in a minute. I noticed that you said
40,000. That is an impressive number. That is 40 copies of
``Dr. Zhivago.'' That is 40 copies of ``Crime and Punishment.''
That is a lot of pages.
Forty thousand out of how many? That is our question. How
many documents? Is 40,000 half? Is it all? Is it two-thirds?
Mr. Rubin. We have made a comprehensive search, and, as you
know, the State Department spans 275 missions overseas, 70,000
employees----
Chairman Gowdy. I am not asking you to bring any
ambassadors back.
Mr. Rubin. We have provided a comprehensive amount of----
Chairman Gowdy. I am not asking you to bring any
ambassadors back to search for emails. I am not. Not a single
one.
How many employees does the State Department have?
Mr. Rubin. Roughly 70,000.
Chairman Gowdy. Seventy thousand?
Mr. Rubin. Correct.
Chairman Gowdy. All right. And we have asked for emails
from seventh-floor principals. Do you think that that is a
reasonable request when you have been asked to study all
policies, all activities, and all decisions?
Mr. Rubin. In your committee's December letter where it
named principals, first, many--in fact, all of those principals
have--there are emails, there are documents related to them in
that 40,000. And, in addition, you and your----
Chairman Gowdy. Is it your testimony that we have all of
the emails that we have asked for?
Mr. Rubin. Well, you and your colleagues prioritized former
Secretary Clinton's emails, and that is our priority, as I
stated in my opening statement.
Chairman Gowdy. Well, I would say multiple emails. If there
are multiple email accounts, we want all of the emails.
Mr. Rubin. And----
Chairman Gowdy. Okay?
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. We agree. And we are, as I said
earlier----
Chairman Gowdy. Okay.
Well, you may have noticed my colleague from Maryland used
the word ``glacial.'' 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 ask-and-answered
Web site before you got the 15,000 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 are going to pick up the
pace. We are going to pick up the pace. I have no interest in
prolonging this. None.
Mr. Rubin. Sir, I assure you that----
Chairman Gowdy. So you are going to have to----
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. That we do not either.
Chairman Gowdy [continuing]. Pick up the pace with us,
okay?
Mr. Rubin. Absolutely. And this is why we are 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 know, to----
Chairman Gowdy. I appreciate that, Mr. Rubin.
Are you familiar with the subpoena that dates back to 2013
that the Oversight Committee sent with respect to the ARB?
Mr. Rubin. Yes.
Chairman Gowdy. Okay. ARB is a statutory creation, you
agree? Congress created the ARB?
Mr. Rubin. Yes, it----
Chairman Gowdy. Do you agree Congress can amend or alter or
enhance the ARB? If it is a statute, sure----
Mr. Rubin. Through an Act of Congress.
Chairman Gowdy [continuing]. Congress can change it, right?
Do you agree Congress should provide oversight over one of its
statutory creations?
Mr. Rubin. Yes, sir.
Chairman Gowdy. How can we do that if you will not give us
the documents related to the ARB? How can we possibly do that,
Mr. Rubin?
Mr. Rubin. Sir, first, of the 40,000 pages of documents
that the committee has received, many of those are, in fact,
related to the ARB.
Chairman Gowdy. Mr. Rubin, 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 is in the House
resolution, and that word is ``all.''
Mr. Rubin. Sir----
Chairman Gowdy. Do we have all of the documents?
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. What we have communicated to you
and to your staff and what we have 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 have noted here, becomes the top priority, that is
certainly----
Chairman Gowdy. Mr. Rubin----
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. Our priority.
Chairman Gowdy [continuing]. We shouldn't have to pick
among priorities. You have 70,000 employees. I mean, what we
are not going to do is identify one tranche of emails and then
2 months later go depose or do a witness interview with that
witness and then 2 months later get another tranche of emails,
when our colleagues on the other side--who, by the way, had no
interest in forming this committee whatsoever--are now
ironically complaining about the pace of the committee that
they had no interest in forming whatsoever.
It is time for us to pick up the pace. And I am looking to
you----
Mr. Rubin. Yes.
Chairman Rubin [continuing]. To help me do that.
Mr. Rubin. And that is why we are here, and that is why we
have continuously engaged proactively with you and your
committee, and we are happy to continue to do so.
Chairman Gowdy. Okay.
Mr. Rubin. And I would mention, the 70,000 employees are
engaged in their jobs.
Chairman Gowdy. I appreciate that. I don't want any
ambassadors, 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 condom demonstrations or
culinary diplomacy, I think you have time to comply with a
legitimate request for documents from Congress, and I am sure
you agree.
And, with that, I would recognize the gentleman from
Maryland.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rubin, thank you. And I am going to try something a
little different here; I am going to let you get a complete
sentence out in response to a question so we can hopefully
elicit some information.
But, 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 is a little off
here. Between May and November, that is five or six months
before the committee made a document request.
Now, the Chairman would have everybody believe that they
have been begging for documents from day one and you have been
stonewalling them and that is 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 are 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 that is a long time to wait for a
document request if you are in a big hurry.
The second interesting thing about the little back-and-
forth right 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?
Mr. Rubin. That is correct.
Mr. Smith. 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 requests have 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 am ranking member on the
Armed Services Committee, and we have 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 someone had come 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 the concern. Why was this committee formed in the
first place?
Now, one of the things that I really want to make clear for
Mr. Gowdy is he is never going to get every single question
answered and he is never going to get every single document. I
have been a legislator for 24 years, a prosecutor for a little
bit of time. I have not yet encountered the event in human
history where every question gets answered. It is frustrating;
it is 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--to the people
whose lives were destroyed by this--that somehow we are 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 is not what we are doing. We
have nine separate investigations that have been done.
So what 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 am readily going to admit is
that Benghazi was an awful incident in our Nation's history,
and the people who were in charge when it happened, you know,
they have 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 President, 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. And 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 them the benefit of the doubt. Said, ``Okay,
let's see.'' Formed in May. No document request till November
18th. We are in January. We don't have a vote on the rules. We
get occasionally a loose timeline for the interviews 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--and I am 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, and now
Mr. Thornberry and I, we have had our disagreements. But I will
tell you, there has never been anything like that, where
evidence on the other side we just sort of excluded 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 wasn't it changed, you are 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 including 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 than that. But I got to tell you,
what I just witnessed between the Chairman and Mr. Rubin here,
trying to make it look like they are being stonewalled when
they are not, hardly encourages me.
And, again, I will just conclude by emphasizing the fact
that Mr. Rubin pointed out they have not said ``no'' to
interviewing a witness. And I agree with Mr. Gowdy. As Members
of Congress, we are constantly bumping heads against one
administration or another. We want to interview every witness.
And when you get to the point where you do say ``no'', well,
then maybe we will have an argument. But you haven't said
``no''.
The documents you are 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 era of emails and texts
and everything else, that is a heck of a lot of information to
find, and 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 are going to find
everything, but it is clear that there is no stonewalling
effort here, that the reason that we have moved so slow is
because of the decisions made by the committee.
Now, I tend to be a little bit more impatient than our
ranking member. That is why he has got the top job; he is
better at it. For me, about a week ago when I learned about all
this stuff, it was time to say, ``Hey, what is 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 are 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, it is 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 effort to find the truth.
So I hope some of those things change. And, number one, the
top of the list--and I will just close with this--it has 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--an argument--and it turned out that that
witness directly contradicted that line of argument, and then
you don't tell the other side?
And Mr. Gowdy has pointed out he is a prosecutor. You do
that in open court, you get a piece of information like that
and 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 your job. There are so many
documents in the world, but I hope you will provide them. And I
hope you will provide what this committee asks for, when they
get around to asking for it.
I yield back.
Chairman Gowdy. The chair will now recognize the gentlelady
from Alabama, Ms. Roby.
Mrs. Roby. Well, Mr. Rubin, I hope you thank Mr. Smith
after the hearing for giving you a little bit of a break. I am
going to ask you a series of questions now to follow up with
the chairman about the processes.
We keep talking about those 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?
Mr. Rubin. Thank you, ma'am.
The 40,000 is the accumulation of 2-plus years of
searching, of gathering of documents from across the entire
State Department. We have provided these--we provided--
Mrs. Roby. Right. I am 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 40,000 is a lot of documents. So where
does that fit into the universe?
Mr. Rubin. So it is 40,000 pages of documents. I said
40,000 documents. I mean to say 40,000 pages of documents. That
is a significant amount. That is what we have found. That is
what we have searched for, and that what is what we have found.
Mrs. Roby. 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 are using
to gain access.
So let's start with, are you using a centralized location
to ensure that you are properly capturing all of the documents,
or is it mined out to different bureaus?
Mr. Rubin. 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 that 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 nonproliferation bureau.
So we don't----
Mrs. Roby. Can you tell us right now----
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. Have one single point of contact.
Mrs. Roby. Okay. 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?
Mr. Rubin. 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 is
across the entire----
Mrs. Roby. So there is not a Benghazi group, so to speak?
There is not a group of people that have been tapped to say,
you are in charge of document collection for the incidents that
happened and the deaths of the four Americans in Benghazi?
There is not people that have been tapped for that?
Mr. Rubin. It is 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 related to----
Mrs. Roby. Back to my question. Is there a group of people
that have been tapped as individuals to work on document
collection for Benghazi? Just ``yes'' or ``no.'' Is there a
group of people that have been said, you are the Benghazi group
for document production?
Mr. Rubin. Again, the production is an effort that is
across the entire State Department.
Mrs. Roby. So, no, there is not a Benghazi group.
And if there is not a Benghazi group, then I would say,
with 40,000 pages of documents that have already been produced,
not knowing, you know, in the universe of documents, what
percentage that 40,000 pages is, why has there not been--of the
70,000 employees that you referenced before, why has there not
been a group of individuals that you have said, hey--and like
the chairman mentioned before, not to take anybody off the very
important task of their job, but this is an important task.
This is an important issue.
So, of those 70,000 employees, why can't we just get one
group of people designated within the State Department to say,
hey, it is your job to respond, and respond quickly, to these
requests so we can get to the truth?
Mr. Rubin. Ma'am, I assure you that this is the highest
priority. When individuals at the State Department are asked to
provide documents to Congress, people move on it. It is not a
question of people not. It is a question, however, of the
comprehensive nature of acquiring all the information
available, and we want to make sure that we do that well.
Mrs. Roby. Okay.
Mr. Rubin. That means that if we have one or two
individuals, they may miss things, so we need to go to
everybody----
Mrs. Roby. I am 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 group of employees of the
70,000 whose sole job was to ensure that we get to the truth
about what happened in the days and weeks, months leading up to
the attack in Benghazi and then what happened afterwards.
I am going to move on. I want to know how these searches
are done by the individuals across--as you have stated, 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? Or is a staff member, you
know, deemed relevant and then the keyword search is completed?
I mean, what does this look like? When you say to that one
employee, it is your job to do this, what do they do?
Mr. Rubin. It essentially is as you described. It means
going and searching the files, searching the electronic, the
hard files, and looking for the documents that are relevant.
We have multiple document requests underway all the time
from Congress on multiple issues that affect the whole breadth
of American foreign policy. And what that means, then, in
practical purposes is, when Congress says, we need documents on
topic X, then that topic is shared with the Department, and
individuals at the Department have to go search for whether
they have information related to that topic.
Mrs. Roby. Why is so much time being spent redacting
material from these documents?
Mr. Rubin. The State Department has an agreement in place
with the committee that we are very happy with, which is
minimal redactions of these 40,000 pages of documents. And the
committee has told us that they are comfortable with that.
Mrs. Roby. Well, some of these documents have been highly
redacted, and, obviously, that takes time, as well.
Mr. Rubin. Ma'am, those are not necessarily State
Department redactions. We cover foreign policy across the
board, and multiple agencies and equities are involved in the
review process.
Mrs. Roby. Okay.
Every document that we receive is digitally stamped and it
has a Bates number assigned, so this leads us to conclude that
the records are in electronic format. Why is it that the
Department has produced all records in paper format despite our
requests for electronic copies?
Mr. Rubin. That is historic standard practice from the
State Department to ensure that we are providing the documents
in the most user-friendly manner possible. But I am happy to
take back that request.
Mrs. Roby. Please do. And please report back to this
committee as quickly as you can on that.
There is no order to the paper documents that are being
produced. They are not in date order, they are not in Bates-
number order, they are not by person, they are not by office or
bureau. Just boxes of documents.
So can you give us assurance that your further productions
of documents will occur not only timely--as you can see from
the passion of the members of this committee, that we want to
get to the truth, and so the quicker you can get us this
information, obviously the better, particularly because of the
volume. But there is no rhyme or reason to what you are sending
to us, so could you provide them in some sort of order?
Mr. Rubin. So, ma'am, this goes back to the original
questions that you asked. And we are trying to provide the
documents in as quick a manner as possible that are relevant to
the committees for their investigations. If you are asking that
we collate the paper, do the work to review it ourselves, that
is----
Mrs. Roby. Well, you are taking a lot of time to redact
information. It seems that you could at least put them in some
kind of order.
So I look forward to your, you know, further 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 format of these documents.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Gowdy. The chair will now recognize the lady from
California, Ms. Saanchez.
Ms. Saanchez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to pick up where my colleague Mr. Smith left off,
which was in countering the suggestion by the chair's
questioning that somehow the Department of State is not
forthcoming with their witnesses.
I believe that, in his questioning, the chairman said that
DOJ had no problems with the interviews that this committee
wants to conduct with certain witnesses. But I do hold in my
hand a letter from the Department of Justice that is dated
November 21st of 2014, and in that letter it states that they
do have concerns, because they have an ongoing investigation,
and that prior to any interviews that the committee would
conduct, if they could please notify the Department of Justice
prior to that.
And I would ask unanimous consent to submit this letter for
the record.
Chairman Gowdy. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED]
Chairman Gowdy. And I am happy to reconcile those two, if
the gentlelady from California would like me to.
Ms. Saanchez. Well, I would like to continue with my
questioning and my 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.
Chairman Gowdy. Very well.
Ms. Saanchez. So I think that it is clear that DOJ has
expressed some concerns and that it is patently wrong to
suggest that somehow witnesses are being withheld from the
committee. I believe Mr. Smith stated pretty emphatically, and
I believe it is the case, that no one has said that there are
witnesses that cannot be interviewed by this committee. So I
just thought it important to show that, as far back as
November, that DOJ did communicate with this committee and
expressed those concerns.
I want to thank our witnesses for joining us today.
I have to admit that when this committee was first
announced some of us were a bit skeptical about the scope and
the intentions of the investigation. There was, from the
outset, some uncertainty as to what questions this committee
would be tasked with answering and whether or not Democratic
members of this committee would be fairly included in the work
of the committee. Could partisanship, in fact, be set aside and
logic and facts guide the course of the investigation?
And I can only speak for myself in saying that I put those
concerns aside, in the hope that there would be an honest and
open investigation that was free of partisan motives. But, boy,
it really looks like I was wrong on that one.
The committee members on the Democratic side waited
patiently as Chairman Gowdy assured us that there would be
transparency and that minority members would be included in the
investigation process and that he would outline the questions
that still needed to be answered. Eight months later, our
committee still lacks that scope, that transparency, and, more
than ever, the credibility.
Now, more than ever, I am convinced that my colleagues on
the other side of the aisle are in search of this mythical
creature--this unicorn--and the unicorn being some kind of
nefarious conspiracy, and that this nefarious conspiracy that
they are looking for does not, in fact, exist.
Over the last few months, the majority has systematically
robbed Democratic members of meaningful participation in this
investigation. Apparently, our only use is to sit up on this
dais in full committee hearings and be allowed to ask a few
simple questions.
As my colleagues have noted, Mr. Cummings and Mr. Smith
have noted, Democrats have been excluded from discussions that
the chairman and his staff have had with material witnesses.
The chairman has refused to convene an organizational
meeting or establish rules to address our concerns about the
increasingly partisan direction that this committee has taken.
In fact, yesterday the chairman told us that we could only have
a vote on committee rules if we agree to vote on his rules,
even though we think that they are patently unfair. I don't
know what kind of logic that is, that you can have a vote so
long as it is the vote for what I want. The chairman might have
the right to do these things, but that doesn't make his actions
fair or nonpartisan.
Witnesses have been interrogated without any of our members
or minority staff present. We have been denied opportunities to
counter fanciful claims, and we have been left in the dark as
to what answers Chairman Gowdy and his members are searching
for.
Worse, the majority has manipulated facts and evidence to
suit the narrative of their ongoing conspiracy theories. When
convenient, they have left out key witness testimonies that
don't corroborate the outlandish conspiracy theories that they
are seeking to prove.
Ms. Saanchez. And when the facts don't add up, they just
continue to make more fanciful claims.
For example, back in September, an article reported that
former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Ray Maxwell came
forward with a startling allegation that, ``Hillary Clinton
confidants were part of an operation to separate damaging
documents before they were turned over to the Accountability
Review Board.''
That allegation, which was reported in many conservative
media outlets, 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 Gowdy called these allegations incredibly serious
and told Fox News in mid-October 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.
The day before the chairman's interview on Fox News, his
staff had spoken to a witness that Mr. Maxwell identified as
being able to corroborate his claim. Republicans excluded
Democrats from that interview and told us that they had learned
nothing, quote, ``of note'' from that witness.
But when Democrat 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 in documents that might be unfavorable to the
Department. He further reported that he never engaged 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. Chairman Gowdy has
explained why we were excluded from that interview--he has
never explained that. He has downplayed or discounted the
factual information that the witness provided. And the
information was material.
As a former prosecutor, Mr. Chairman, you understand that
evaluating the credibility of witnesses and their allegations
depends on whether the information that they provide can be
corroborated or not. Although your staff stated that they
learned nothing ``of note'', in fact they learned that this
claim was not substantiated by a key witness. And, to me, that
is incredibly telling.
Unfortunately, because the facts didn't shoehorn into the
conspiracy narrative, they failed to divulge that information
to our side.
If our goal is the truth and not a predetermined outcome,
these interviews should have been conducted jointly with
Democrats and Republicans in the room. Facts that do not
support serious allegations that we are investigating should
not and cannot be ignored. These actions sabotage a serious and
credible investigation. They make it an unfair, exclusionary
investigation with no transparency. And I, for one, am not
willing to sit by silently any longer.
Maybe there is a good reason for all this nonsense. Maybe
the secrecy is meant to distract from some of the committee's
shortcomings. In the eight months since its formation, the
majority in the committee has failed to deliver on some key
promises. They have yet to request documents from the
Department of Defense, they have yet to summon any CIA
witnesses, and they have yet to yield any new information that
has not already been uncovered by the previous eight--count
them, eight--in-depth investigations into the attacks on the
Embassy in Benghazi. That is a pretty abysmal record.
So if my colleagues and I sound a little frustrated today,
well, it is with good reason. We have had enough of this
pursuit and this quest to catch this mythical unicorn. Eight
separate investigations, bipartisan investigations, where both
sides agreed on the rules, have been conducted, and none have
found this nefarious conspiracy.
If a constituent of mine were audited by the IRS eight
times for the same year or if some member of the American
public were tried in a court of law eight separate times for
the same crime and no wrongdoing was found, 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.
But this time, this time, perhaps if we change the rules,
if we make them unfair and lopsided, give one side the
advantage of hearing witness testimony and the other side not,
keep them locked out of the room, well, then maybe, just maybe,
the outcome might be a little different from this committee
than from the previous eight.
Mr. Chairman, the American public, the families that were
affected by what happened in Benghazi, and the victims
themselves deserve better. So I am urging you to adopt rules
that allow for participation of both Republicans and Democrats
in all future committee interviews so that we can conduct
credible, nonpartisan, and transparent investigation into this
matter.
In the time that I have remaining, I just want to say I
apologize to our witnesses. These are tensions that have been
boiling over for some time, but they are tensions that have
been raised again and again and again.
And you make much of the fact that we didn't vote to
empanel this committee or want to be here because we kind of
suspected that this is where it would end up. And I hate to say
it, but those who were more cynical, I think, had the better
argument.
And, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Gowdy. I thank the gentlelady from California. And
I can assure her, I will never give veto power over subpoenas
to any entity that thinks no subpoena should ever be issued.
And, with that, I would recognize the gentleman from
Illinois, Mr. Roskam.
Mr. Roskam. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would just like to point out a couple of the internal
inconsistencies that our friends on the other side of the aisle
are making.
Mr. Cummings made a pledge to pursue the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, and Mr. Smith basically said
you are never going to get it, it is impossible. In fact, he
said, ``You are never going to get all of the answers. You are
never going to get all of the documents.'' That is an internal
inconsistency, and they need to work it out.
Now, Ms. Saanchez just made an argument that said, well,
certain information would have disposed of a particular
question. But had that information been released, it would have
made an exact argument that said, this is selective leaking of
information.
And to Mr. Cummings' point, to go back and use just a
classic straw man argument--you don't hear that that much, and
there was really no pretense to it, but the classic straw man
argument says, this is the Oversight and Government Reform
Committee. No, it is not. It is a completely different
committee with a completely different chairman and completely
different admonition from the House.
And, really, to characterize this as a partisan process
that is glacial in nature, when the majority has accepted the
recommendation of the minority, and that is to have the first
two subjects at the request of the minority party? Ridiculous.
It is ridiculous.
So let's get down to really what this is all about.
Mr. Rubin, thank you for your time today.
I thought it was ironic that you are talking now in terms
of the timing of these things, and that is what has everybody
concerned, but you are actually speaking in seasons of the
year. With some happiness, you said, ``We have produced two
witnesses since the fall.'' Isn't that ironic, that you are not
speaking in terms of days or weeks or even months, but you are
characterizing the timing of the Department of State in terms
of seasons of the year?
Now, you have come into this with an opinion, haven't you,
based on your past writings? You wrote a piece about
politicizing the Benghazi attacks back in October of 2012.
Isn't that right?
Mr. Rubin. Yes, I did.
Mr. Roskam. Let me read the first two paragraphs, and I
just 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,
including the U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, represented 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 2: ``Instead of getting that support, their
deaths are being 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
what went wrong, waiting to get all of the facts out,
conservatives are trying to affix blame for their deaths for
political advantage.''
Now, I recognize, Mr. Rubin, there has been a lot of things
coming off of Capitol Hill as it relates to Benghazi, but you
don't think that this is a frivolous, partisan investigation,
do you?
Mr. Rubin. Sir, Chris Stevens was a friend of mine. I
worked on Capitol Hill----
Mr. Roskam. I understand that.
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. Alongside Chris. And----
Mr. Roskam. You don't think----
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. Sir, I am sorry----
Mr. Roskam. Mr. Rubin----
Mr. Rubin. Okay.
Mr. Roskam [continuing]. Do you think that that is a
frivolous, partisan investigation?
Mr. Rubin. Sir, I am not commenting on the question of is
this a frivolous, partisan investigation, because you----
Mr. Roskam. Well, you----
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. Are reciting what I wrote in 2012--
--
Mr. Roskam [continuing]. State of mind going into accepting
responsibility----
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. When I was not in the government.
Mr. Roskam [continuing]. At the Department of State. And I
am interested in a simple question. Do you think that this
investigation is frivolous and partisan? What is your opinion?
Mr. Rubin. 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, and he represented
the best of the State Department, the best of America. And----
Mr. Roskam. Is this frivolous?
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. I am sorry, sir, his name at that
time was not being used in a manner that I felt respected his
memory.
Mr. Roskam. Mr. Rubin, is this frivolous? I am asking you
an opinion about your opinion about this process today. Is this
frivolous, and is this partisan? What is your answer? Can you
not----
Mr. Rubin. Sir----
Mr. Roskam [continuing]. Give an answer to that simple
question?
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. The State Department is and has
been, from the Secretary on down, happy to comply with and work
with the committee, as the chairman himself has said in a
letter as well as in public comment that we have been
cooperative.
Mr. Roskam. Mr. Rubin, I thought that was an easy lay-up. I
thought it was an easy thing for you to say, no, of course this
is serious, and of course this is 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 are not going to give it to
me, so let's move on.
I find myself oftentimes translating for people. I will
translate back home what is meant by certain language up here.
I find it ironic that you work for the State Department and you
are in the business of understanding foreign language and you
have misinterpreted the language, the graciousness, and the
charm of a southern chairman. Because to come in here and to
sort of claim that you are gratified that we are pleased with
your cooperation, let me translate for you. He is not pleased
with your cooperation, he doesn't think that this is going
well, and he thinks that you are part of the problem.
Now, you claimed in your original testimony, ``In this
role, I serve as the Department's chief liaison to the House,
responsible for ensuring that the multitude of foreign-policy
issues,'' et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So your testimony is
that you are responsible; is that right?
Mr. Rubin. My testimony is 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
those issues, as requested by Congress, and go back and forth
in dialogue with the Foreign Affairs Committee, the other----
Mr. Roskam. Mr. Rubin, back in November, November 18th, a
season ago, this committee requested the documents, the emails,
the communiques, and so forth of 11 of the principals on the
seventh floor. You are familiar with that.
Now, I brought my computer here today. And I know it is not
the same thing. I don't want to oversimplify it for the sake of
being gratuitous. But when I go to my email, 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. To never
say no, you don't have to say no. As a dad, when my kids would
come to me and I would say--they would ask to do something and
I didn't want to do it, I would say, ``Let me think about it.''
You are doing the exact same thing. You are saying, ``We are
working on it.''
Do you remember that scene in ``Raiders of the Lost Ark''
at the very end when Indiana Jones goes in and he is talking to
the government guy and he says, ``Where is 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 are the government guy. You are standing up for ``top
people.'' You have to bring your game. You have to be the
expediter. You have to be 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 is not moving fast enough, and they are being passive
aggressive by not participating. That just doesn't work, and it
is very flatfooted. But what we need from you is a disposition
of expedition. That is, recognizing that a chairman is not
happy, don't misinterpret the charm and graciousness of the
South. I am from Chicago; we have none of that. And we are
trying to be very, very direct, and that is to be part of the
remedy, Mr. Rubin, to be part of the solution and to get things
done.
Mr. Rubin. As I have said, sir, and as I can assure you, as
I said in my testimony, we will begin the production of
additional documents to the committee within days. We are also
needing the guidance from the committee as to its top
priorities and sequencing.
Mr. Roskam. That is arguing----
Mr. Rubin. The committee had told us it is a top priority.
Mr. Roskam. No, no. You are making an argument there, Mr.
Rubin, that says that these things have to be consecutive
requests. They are not consecutive requests. They are
concurrent requests. You can walk and chew gum at the same
time.
Mrs. Roby made the point, you have 70,000 employees. So to
make the admonition of the committee that you have to line up
single-file and you are going to be admitted in and we are
going to get you this piece of evidence if you ask the right
way and you are going to give that piece of evidence, come on,
that is an old trick.
Mr. Rubin. Sir, we have a record of cooperation with this
committee. Even----
Mr. Roskam. Not enough.
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. In recent days, we proactively
offered a briefing to this committee that was not requested.
Mr. Roskam. A briefing. Come on. We need----
Mr. Rubin. Sir----
Mr. Roskam. We need the documents of the 11 people on the
seventh floor.
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. It was more than a briefing, much
more than a briefing.
Mr. Roskam. We need it promptly. And we----
Mr. Rubin. And we are committed to providing the documents.
Mr. Roskam. My time has expired. I yield back.
Chairman Gowdy. The chair will go to the gentleman from
California, Mr. Schiff.
Mr. Schiff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am still trying to figure out who is Indiana Jones in
that analogy. I don't think there is an Indiana Jones on this
panel, much as I would like to say there is.
I want to comment on a couple things, and I am not sure
that I have any question for either of the panelists.
Mr. Higgins, thank you for spending your time with us
today. I am not sure why you are here, but I appreciate your
presence.
And, Mr. Rubin, it 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 unfair to the State Department, considering that if
we are going to look to assess responsibility for the slow pace
of this investigation, we ought 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 the 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, that select
committee, had finished its work before we had even 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 are looking for. This was a big part of the reason why
many Democrats had a reservation about participating in the
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 it was 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 Democrat supported
it. In fact, four Republicans voted against the rules package
which reauthorized this committee.
And a big part of the reason is that, even now, eight
months later, we still don't know what we are looking for. And
this is a problem not only in terms of this select committee
and investigation going on indefinitely, but it is also a
problem in terms of the pace at which we can expect to get our
document requests responded to. If we had a better idea of what
we were looking at, if we had a better idea of what was
actually in controversy, then we could narrow our requests, and
I am sure we could get it complied with with much more
alacrity.
Part of the reason why I think the charter for this select
committee was as broad as the chairman mentioned is that we
really didn't know the purpose of this committee. Were we
looking at gun-running, or were we looking at nonexistent
stand-down orders, or were we looking at military assistance
that was ordered not to be provided, or were we looking at any
other number of myths?
The challenge has been that, on these issues, it is not as
if there was a factual controversy. There wasn't, before this
committee was established. We have had innumerable
investigations, and we couldn't narrow in on a particular set
of facts that were in dispute, because it really wasn't a fact-
based dispute as much as a political dispute about how to
interpret the events.
So the charter was very broad, and, for that reason, it was
voted on on a fairly party-line basis. But the committee was
established. We agreed to participate in the hopes that,
against our expectation, it would turn out to be something
different.
And, initially, it looked that way. And I am grateful that
the first two hearings were on a very productive course, and
that is what have we done in terms of implementing the ARB
recommendations. I think that was very productive to do. I
think it is very productive to ask, ``Where are we in the hunt
for those responsible?''
But we haven't narrowed the scope to those things. We
haven't narrowed the scope, indeed, at all. We still don't know
what we are looking for, but we know we are looking for
something. And it is part of the reason why we feel it is so
important that we agree on the scope of this investigation;
otherwise, it is going to go on forever. It really will be a
partisan fishing expedition, or it will be drawn out to affect
the Presidential election cycle.
At the end of the day--and I want to disabuse anyone of the
idea that was suggested by my colleague--we have never asked
for a veto over subpoenas. What we have asked for is to be
notified of them, to have a chance to weigh in. Where they are
not disputed, our ranking member and chairman can agree on
them, and where they are disputed, we ought to have a vote on
them. That is not a veto. They have far more members than we
do. Provided their members agree with the subpoena requests,
they should always be approved. But we ought to have at least
an open debate about it to prevent this from getting into a
purely partisan exercise, unless that is the goal.
So I think defining the scope here is going to be very
important if it is going to have any credibility.
And 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 are going to
invest our time in this, let's make it worthwhile. And that
means let's make it bipartisan so that the country and the
families will have the confidence of knowing that this was an
objective work product.
Because, honestly, if at the end of the day we have a
report and the Republicans vote for it and the Democrats vote
against it, yes, it will pass--you have the majority; you can
do pretty much whatever you want--but it will have been a
complete waste of time, and it will be a disservice to the
families and a disservice to the taxpayers.
So if we are going to get to that bipartisan work product
at the end of the day, it is going to have to mean we need to
know who you are talking to. We need to know when they agree
with the narrative that some believe; we need to know when they
disagree with that narrative.
We ought to be part of the discussions about who we are
subpoenaing. We ought to be part of the discussion about what
we are really going to focus on here. I mean, at the end of the
day, is it really about gun-running? Does anyone really think
that is what this is about? And if it is not, okay, then let's
not waste our time on that.
So let's figure out what this is about. Let's, you know,
dedicate ourselves to making this a bipartisan work product at
the end of the day. And we all have too much to do and there is
too much at stake and too many families who are so deeply
impacted by this, that they deserve better than anything less
than bipartisan.
And I yield back.
Mr. Jordan [presiding]. The gentlelady from Indiana is
recognized.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to agree that we do need to get to the bottom
and we do need to find out what happened, and that is what
everyone has been talking about. But the manner in which you do
that, whether you are 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, has been the problem that we have had,
is that while you, Mr. Rubin, 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 interviewed witnesses yet, because we have
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 committees, and it has taken a long time just to get
those. What was produced to OGR? What was produced to Intel? So
I just want to say, we 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, thorough, thoughtful, efficient investigation,
we have to have the documents first. That is why we have been
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 have
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 2 years since this tragic incident, how can it be that we
are still getting new documents?
And the need to review those documents, as 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. Rubin--our first two requests for 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 4 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 has 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 are not
seeking to duplicate any work that has 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. Rubin, 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?
Mr. Rubin. 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
priorities were. And it was communicated to us that the four
Diplomatic Security agents, DS, that that was the highest
priority.
And that is where it runs into this complexity of an
ongoing investigation to prosecute, potentially, the individual
that is in custody for those terrorist attacks. And the Justice
Department has raised concerns that we need to be mindful of.
That is----
Mrs. Brooks. Well----
Mr. Rubin. That is the only discussion that we have had
related to that, to be mindful of that.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
And please know that, as a former U.S. attorney and someone
who was in charge of Victim-Witness Subcommittee for Attorney
General Ashcroft and Attorney General Gonzales, I am 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 all of
these witnesses--and I appreciate you would like them to be
prioritized. It is January 27th today. There is no date yet
scheduled for an interview of any of these people. We are not
going to wait to receive now all of these documents, which
would have been the more efficient way for a real investigation
to be done.
So we would like to know what date. And because we want to
preserve the safety and security of these personnel, we would
like to know, I would say within the next 24 hours, which
witnesses will be made available next week and which witnesses
will be made available the following week and which witnesses
will be made available the following week and so on.
And we all have a certain number of staff, but our staff
will go to these witnesses, or we will work with you to make
arrangements to get these staff back to Washington, D.C., to
conduct these interviews.
Are you in agreement that that can be done?
Mr. Rubin. To provide a bit of context----
Mrs. Brooks. And we will be working with the Justice
Department on all of this, as well, to ensure their safety and
security.
So, assuming that we take the Justice Department
prosecution off of your plate and assume we work with them on
how this will be done, will you work with us to get these
interviews set up in the next week?
Mr. Rubin. Ma'am, we are always open to communicating and
speaking with you. I am not the legal expert for the State
Department. I will not take on that role. But I will tell you
that----
Mrs. Brooks. Who is the legal expert?
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. We have lawyers at the State
Department that are continually in touch, and individuals and
staff, with the staff of the committee, and we are always open
to that conversation.
Mrs. Brooks. I appreciate that.
Who is the lawyer from the State Department that we should
be communicating with with respect to scheduling these
interviews of up to 22 different witnesses?
Mr. Rubin. I would have to get you the specific person, but
I am sure that the staffs know who they are speaking with
directly about these issues.
Mrs. Brooks. Who is the head of legal affairs for the State
Department?
Mr. Rubin. Well, the Legal Advisor is Mary McLeod. But that
is the Legal Adviser, the top of the State Department Office of
the Legal Adviser.
But within the context of the letter request for these
interviews, it is important to remember that after we receive
the requests, we have gone to the committee to ask for the
priorities. In that interim process, we have prepared
briefings, we have been engaged. And it took several weeks to
get the priorities from the committee.
Mrs. Brooks. Why do you need priorities? They are all
priorities. Twenty-two people----
Mr. Rubin. They are all----
Mrs. Brooks. Why do we have to prioritize? Why does our
staff have to prioritize to the State Department?
Mr. Rubin. Because we want to know for your work, to make
it as easy as possible, what it is that you are looking at as
the highest to-do item on your checklist.
Mrs. Brooks. When we don't know what they have to say, it
is difficult, Mr. Rubin, to know who has the most information.
And so, at this point, we have the bandwidth and I would
suggest that the other side has the bandwidth to begin on a
regular process to set up a schedule as to when we will
interview each of these 22 witnesses--18 who have not been
interviewed who worked in Benghazi and in Libya prior and 4 who
were there at the time of the attack.
And so will you work with us? Will you commit----
Mr. Rubin. Of course.
Mrs. Brooks [continuing]. That your legal department will
work with us to--and we will pledge that we will work with the
Justice Department on these witnesses, too, because we
absolutely do not want to compromise that investigation.
But these are individuals, some of whom have been
interviewed by the ARB; is that correct?
Mr. Rubin. I am not intimately knowledgeable of every
individual the ARB spoke with.
Mrs. Brooks. We must have these interviews done in an
expeditious manner. And if we could please get the documents
ahead of time, it will make it most effective, and we won't
need to have multiple interviews with these important
eyewitnesses.
Mr. Rubin. Thank you.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
I yield back.
Chairman Gowdy [presiding]. The chair would now recognize
the gentleman from Kansas, Mr. Pompeo.
Mr. Pompeo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It has been a very
productive hearing.
Mr. Schiff seemed confused about why you are here, Mr.
Higgins. I am about to enlighten him just perhaps a little bit
about why you are here today.
The Central Intelligence Agency had turned over a series of
documents to the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence. When it wrapped up its investigation, it returned
those documents, as it did under its instructions and its
rules, and they provided them to you. In a letter of May 8th,
then-chairman of the committee, Chairman Mike Rogers asked you
to hold on to those documents, to secund them in a way that
they would be available to this committee in a very expeditious
manner.
Since at least October, this committee has been seeking
those documents. November 19th, one of your staff said, quote,
``Working to try to set up a time next week,'' end of quote.
December 8th, one of your staff attorneys says, quote, ``We are
in the process of organizing and page-numbering,'' end of
quote. And then December 15, one of your staff attorneys said,
quote, ``We will reach out to you soon,'' end of quote.
That is a series of documents you had already identified.
You had turned them over on Thursday of last week after
Chairman Gowdy had to go through the process of notifying you
that you were going to come here today and have to answer for
why you hadn't turned over the documents. Coincidence?
Mr. Higgins. No, sir. Thank you for the question.
And I absolutely understand your frustration and the
committee's frustration. Producing these materials has taken
longer than you consider acceptable and certainly longer than
we anticipated, as those emails from November and December
suggest.
If you bear with me, let me see if I can explain the
delay----
Mr. Pompeo. If you will do so quickly, I will be happy to
bear with you.
Mr. Higgins. I will do so as quickly as I can. Let me see
if I can explain the delay.
The committee first requested access to these documents on
November 14th, one of the emails you referenced. Other events
overtook that request. The committee revisited the issue on
December 8th, asking to see the documents during the week of
December 15th.
At that point, those of us in contact with the committee,
as those emails again suggest, felt that it should be a pretty
straightforward process of delivering to you the materials that
we have previously produced to the House Intelligence
Committee.
During this time, while we were in contact, our staff most
familiar with the Benghazi-related documents had been working
on the State Department document request, reviewing those
40,000 pages for CIA equities. When we asked them to prepare
our own documents for delivery to the committee, they made
three discoveries.
First, they discovered that the documents we had provided
to HPSCI and HPSCI had returned to us were very disorganized,
speaking to Mrs. Roby's previous point. They were not in
chronological order or any logical order.
Second, they realized that the documents did not comply
with the limited redaction criteria that we have previously
discussed with this committee's staff directors.
Third, they learned that CIA had not kept an exact soft
copy of what had been produced to HPSCI. So what that meant was
that we had to go through a fairly time-consuming process of
identifying the matching soft copies for the hard copies of
thousands of pages that we had produced to HPSCI, pairing them
up, implementing the limited necessary redactions that we had
agreed with the staff directors, and then sorting them in
chronological order. And we have run into technical problems
with Bates-numbering them, but we are hoping that they will all
be able to be Bates-numbered, as well.
Mr. Pompeo. Let me see if I can summarize.
Mr. Higgins. Yeah.
Mr. Pompeo. You gave some documents to HPSCI, we gave them
back to you, and you couldn't figure how to give them back to
us in a timely fashion.
Mr. Higgins. It----
Mr. Pompeo. But when the hearing was noticed, you figured
it out.
Mr. Higgins. Our internal goal was to finish it by--our
internal goal was to finish it by this Friday. We did
accelerate that timeline----
Mr. Pompeo. You bet. To meet the hearing.
Mr. Higgins [continuing]. To meet the hearing deadline. But
we had planned to finish the process I described, as
bureaucratic and cumbersome as it sounds, we had planned to
finish that by this Friday at the latest.
Mr. Pompeo. I appreciate that.
Mr. Higgins. And I apologize for the delay in----
Mr. Pompeo. I appreciate that. Can we do better as we move
forward?
Mr. Higgins. Absolutely.
Mr. Pompeo. This was a pretty simple request. Some of the
other challenges that the State Department has identified
didn't exist here.
Mr. Higgins. It certainly appeared simple on its face, and
we discovered it was more complicated than we thought.
Mr. Pompeo. Let me talk about witnesses. There have been
comments from the other side that we haven't asked for
witnesses. We are going to.
Will you agree that you will help us find those folks?
We will do all the right things to safeguard these folks.
Mr. Higgins. Yep.
Mr. Pompeo. They are warriors. We don't want to compromise
them at all.
Will you agree that you will work with us closely to help
us get those folks so that we can get their testimony, as well?
Mr. Higgins. Yes, sir. And we actually just received today
the committee's request to speak with CIA witnesses, and we
will do so.
Mr. Pompeo. Great. Thank you.
That brings up a point. You just got it today. I assume
when these witnesses come, you are going to hope we only have
to interview them once; is that correct?
Mr. Higgins. I would hope so.
Mr. Pompeo. It would be your strong preference that we not
turn up a document after we have brought these folks back from
goodness knows where to come testify, that we don't have to
call them back to address another document. One time is better
than two and certainly better than three, right?
Mr. Higgins. Absolutely.
Mr. Pompeo. And, Mr. Rubin, you would agree with that?
Mr. Rubin. Yes, although I am not the expert in interviews.
Mr. Pompeo. But you would prefer, if we have to round up
somebody from the State Department, that we just do it once and
not have to gather them up, get your lawyers, all that goes
with that, a second or a third time. That is better from your
agency's perspective. Fewer of your 70,000 top people, right?
Mr. Rubin. I can't speak to the effectiveness of
interviews, but----
Mr. Pompeo. Here is what I can say. We have heard today
from the other side that we haven't called witnesses, and I
will tell you, until you get us the documents, we are going to
be very loathe to bring them, because I know we will never get
these folks back a second time. You all will find hundreds of
reasons not to bring them the first time and thousands of
reasons not to bring them the second time. And we are just
going to do this right. We are going to do this, but we are
actually going to pursue this inquiry in a reasonable way.
Mr. Higgins, it took us a long time to get some of our
senior staff clearances. We have a three-star general that
couldn't get an SCI completed until--when was it? When the
hearing was noticed. Right. Shortly before the hearing was
noticed, we get the final set of clearances that we need.
Can you assure us that that won't happen in the future? We
will probably have additional folks that need to be cleared.
This is a comity between the branches that you all have done
good work on in the past.
And it is one the things--again, we have been trying to
move this along. Now we have the minority saying we are too
slow. But we didn't have clearances for staff members in a
timely fashion.
Mr. Higgins. Yeah. We will commit to working with you to
make the clearance process work as smoothly as possible.
I am happy to explain in more detail, if you like, the
various--what CIA's limited role is in the clearance process
and why it has taken as long as it has in a few instances.
But the bottom line is we will work with you to clear
individuals as quickly as possible.
Mr. Pompeo. I appreciate that. And if it is the case that
we are doing something wrong, that we don't have the
information you need to get our folks clearances, we are happy
to expedite that, as well.
But the executive branch sat for far too long and prevented
this committee from taking on the task that we have been
charged with. And so we hear the minority today talk about it,
but the executive branch prevented us from having access to
information and having staff people having access to
information that was necessary for us to execute this
investigation the way these families deserve.
Mr. Higgins. Usually, when clearances have taken longer
than we would like or you would like, it is because necessary
information to adjudicate staff access to sensitive
compartmented information, which is the limited piece that CIA
does, was not provided, and we either had to come back to the
committee or go to our interagency partners.
We have worked through that. I think our security officers
and the committee's security officer now have a good
understanding of how we can move clearances forward in an
expeditious fashion.
Mr. Pompeo. Thank you.
Mr. Higgins, have you received any document requests from
the minority on this committee?
Mr. Higgins. No, I have not.
Mr. Pompeo. Have you received any witness requests from the
minority on this committee?
Mr. Higgins. No requests independent from the request that
we received this morning.
Mr. Pompeo. Mr. Rubin, have you received any document
requests from the minority on this committee?
Mr. Rubin. We have not, sir.
Mr. Pompeo. Have you received any witness requests from the
minority on this committee?
Mr. Rubin. Similar to Mr. Higgins.
Mr. Pompeo. So this today, this is fascinating to watch Mr.
Schiff and Mr. Cummings talk about us being too slow. You have
seen all the impediments that have been put in our way, whether
it was clearances or priorities or documents we can't get our
hands on.
They claim that they want to get--Mr. Cummings says, ``I
want to make sure we complete a fact-finding investigation.''
He hasn't asked for a single fact, not one. It must be the case
that he believes every fact has been determined, that every
relevant line of inquiry has been completed, that there is not
a single witness left in the universe to be interviewed.
The minority complains that they have been shut out. They
haven't asked for a single thing that they have not been
granted by an incredibly gracious Chairman Gowdy with respect
to a witness that they wanted to call before this committee or
a document they sought from any group within the executive
branch.
The hypocrisy to come today and say we are both moving too
slow and asking for too much is something the American people
will get to judge as we move forward.
But I can assure you, I can assure you that everyone on
this committee--and I hope the minority will join in this
effort in a serious way, as well--are going to ask questions.
And it may be the case, as Mr. Smith said, we won't get to all
of the answers that we would like to get to, but we are going
to work at it.
We are going to take this charge seriously, and I hope the
minority will participate, as well. They talk about us being
too slow, and yet they act as if their job is to play defense--
right?--to stop us from engaging in this inquiry, not
participate in it, not say, Mr. Chairman, I think we ought to
ask this witness questions X, Y, and Z. Mr. Chairman, might it
be possible that we could obtain documents from this particular
group? No, rather, they simply act as if they are the brake on
this committee's investigatory work, as if their sole role is
to claim that this investigation is political and not to
participate.
We still have men and women out in the world who are
engaged in important intelligence-collection activities and
keeping America safe. We have an obligation to make sure this
committee gets it right. And I hope the minority in this
committee will begin to take that role seriously, that they
will participate actively, that they, too, will seek witnesses
and documents and information, such that when we get done,
they, too, will be able to sign the report.
I would love for nothing more than to have a bipartisan
report that gets to all of the facts. But if the minority
continues to believe that their role is to play fullback to our
efforts to block everything we do, not to clear the way but,
rather, to obfuscate, I suspect we will end up in a place where
we get a good, factual report but the American people don't get
the full resolution that they deserve.
With that, I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Gowdy. Thank the gentleman from Kansas.
Now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Westmoreland.
Mr. Westmoreland. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just wanted to make a couple of comments about some of
the statements that have been made about the delay in this
committee in the request for documents.
This committee was formed in May, and I don't know if the
minority leader didn't appoint the other side's members for 2
or 3 weeks, but we had to staff up. Both sides had to hire
staff. And then, once we hired the staff, they had to get
security clearance, which Mr. Higgins and Mr. Pompeo alluded
to. We had a retired three-star general that applied for
clearance last September, and I think he got it last Thursday.
You know, if that is not dragging your feet, I don't know what
it is.
But I don't know why we would have wanted all of these
documents, 40,000 pages of documents, if we didn't have staff
cleared to read them. I mean, we Members of Congress, I know
you all don't think we do much, but, you know, for us, reading
40,000 pages of documents, that is what the staff is for.
And so, just in the amount of time it took to staff up, to
find the right people from both sides of the aisle, and then to
get their security clearance, I think everybody needs to
understand, took a while.
And then, as far as the delay, you know, I think the delay
has come from our chairman being too bipartisan. I know there
were hours, if not a couple days, spent on arguing about how
much time each member would get. And I think the minority
wanted it down to 9 minutes and 20 seconds each, the way this
thing was deliberated. And so if we had to spend a couple of
days arguing about, you know, 40 seconds or 20 seconds or
whatever it is, you are not going to get very far.
And as far as us being in the majority, I think the
President said in 2009, elections have consequences.
As Mr. Pompeo said, he and I both sit on the Intelligence
Committee, and reading the resolution that was put before the
House, we have those same authorities as the Intel Committee.
Mr. Higgins, would you agree with that?
Mr. Higgins. The resolution does carve this committee into
House Rule X, which establishes the Intelligence Committee's
authorities over intelligence sources and methods.
Mr. Westmoreland. So you will give this committee the same
respect that you would HPSCI in any request for documents or
witnesses that they might request?
Mr. Higgins. I would be happy in a classified setting to
discuss the materials that CIA has provided as well as the
limited set of redactions that we are implementing pursuant to
conversations with this committee's staff directors.
Mr. Westmoreland. Okay.
And 40,000 pages came from the State Department, and Mr.
Rubin mentioned that there were a lot of--talking about
redaction--there were a lot of other agencies, I guess, that
had to look at what was in there, as far as redacting the
information.
When the CIA received this, were there any redactions
already done?
Mr. Higgins. We had a team that we sent down to the State
Department to review. These were materials that had previously
been produced in part in unclassified form with redactions. We
sent a team down to review the redactions, see which redactions
could be lifted.
As Mr. Rubin indicated, the documents are now less redacted
than they were previously, in part because other agencies, like
CIA, lifted their redactions. Again, any remaining redactions
that are CIA redactions are pursuant to discussions that we
have had with the staff directors here.
Mr. Westmoreland. So is the CIA the only redactions that
are there now?
Mr. Higgins. I can't speak to that, sir, I am afraid. I am
not sure which other agencies----
Mr. Westmoreland. Mr. Rubin, is that the documents, the
40,000 pages of only the CIA redactions?
Mr. Rubin. So the different agencies that have redacted in
different areas cut across the entire interagency, as----
Mr. Westmoreland. Do we know what agencies----
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. Many agencies are involved in
foreign policy.
Mr. Westmoreland. Do we know what agencies redacted what
parts of----
Mr. Rubin. We would be happy to meet with your staff to go
over specific documents to identify where those redactions came
from.
Mr. Westmoreland. Okay. But you know where they came from,
the redactions, and why they are there, right?
Mr. Rubin. Again, if another agency did it, we would engage
with the committee staff and with that agency to help figure
that out.
Mr. Westmoreland. So, by sending this to the CIA--and I am
assuming that the CIA had, unlike the State Department, had
some people specifically set up looking at these Benghazi
documents?
Mr. Higgins. Between our Office of Congressional Affairs
and our Office of General Counsel, we have people that we have
designated to review Benghazi-related documents. So we actually
sent people to the State Department; they didn't send the
documents to us.
Mr. Westmoreland. Okay. So you send them to the State
Department rather than the State Department sending you over
some documents and you looking at it. You actually send folks
over to the State Department; is that correct?
Mr. Higgins. That is correct.
Mr. Westmoreland. Now, when--and I am assuming that for
both the Intel Committee and this committee, that the
redactions you make are for methods and sources. Is that
correct?
Mr. Higgins. That is correct. Again, I would be happy to
provide more detail in a different setting. We have discussed
that with the staff directors from both sides.
Mr. Westmoreland. Okay. So do you think that the State
Department shares emails between employees that would have
methods and sources in it?
Mr. Higgins. There may be times that emails in the State
Department's possession do include CIA information that would
speak to intelligence sources and methods.
Mr. Westmoreland. Between employees?
Mr. Higgins. Or between, say----
Mr. Westmoreland. So the State Department feels like there
are employees that can see methods and operations that Members
of Congress can't see?
Mr. Higgins. I wouldn't--I can't speak as to----
Mr. Westmoreland. Mr. Rubin, I will ask you that question.
Are there emails between State Department employees that
disclose methods and operations and stuff that they can see
that Members of Congress can't see?
Mr. Rubin. In terms of communicating with other agencies,
we have classified communication systems that are part of the
daily operations of foreign policy, broadly speaking, national
security. So, certainly, at State, we communicate with all
relevant agencies who are engaged in national security.
Mr. Westmoreland. Yeah. Well, I know that Mr. Higgins
testified that all of our facilities have been secured and
certified by the CIA. I guess that they are secure, and I think
most of the Members have top security clearance.
And so are you saying that the State Department employees
just send these emails back and forth over something and that
we shouldn't be seeing that?
Mr. Rubin. No, sir. Related to the document request and the
40,000 pages of documents that you have, there are some
classified documents, there are some unclassified documents, in
that which we have provided.
Mr. Westmoreland. What would be considered classified from
another agency that Members of Congress would not need to see?
Mr. Rubin. There is a process for determining when
information is classified as well as to what level. I can't
speak----
Mr. Westmoreland. Okay.
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. In total specificity, but,
generally, when communications are classified between agencies
or within agencies, if that type of information is related to
the document request we are also seeking it.
Mr. Westmoreland. So is the CIA the last agency to get the
redactions to say what needs to be lifted and what doesn't?
Mr. Rubin. I believe the process is that we have gone to
all the agencies who are relevant to these documents and asked
for review.
Mr. Westmoreland. But Mr. Higgins said they lifted some of
the redactions.
Mr. Rubin. Yes. And we, as well, in agreement with the
committee several months ago also agreed with the committee's
desire to have minimal redactions, and so we went back over
these 40,000 pages of documents and minimized the redactions.
Mr. Westmoreland. You know, there was an outside group
prior to this committee being formed that had a Freedom of
Information Act and got some information, I believe it was from
the State Department, with no redactions. And as a member of
the Intel Committee, we had gotten the same information,
redacted.
Now, would it be easier for this committee or to have
better information if we would go through the Freedom of
Information Act rather than requesting it from you all?
Mr. Rubin. Well, my understanding is that we received
18,000 FOIA requests last calendar year. So----
Mr. Westmoreland. Well, they got theirs a little quicker--
--
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. It is safe to say it is
significant.
Mr. Westmoreland. They got theirs quicker than we got ours,
with no redactions.
Mr. Rubin. And this is part and parcel of our cooperative
working relationship with the committee, which is to provide
these documents with minimal redactions. Many of the categories
that were redacted from the State Department we have reduced.
Mr. Westmoreland. Well, your understanding of a cooperative
relationship is probably a little bit different than some of
ours.
But I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Gowdy. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Maryland, Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
As I sit here, I just want to make sure that we are all
pursuing the same thing. I have heard a lot of comments that
concern me.
Let me be clear. We have never, ever tried to veto the
chairman's subpoena power. It just never happened. And I have
made it clear to him over and over again. What we have asked
for is to be true partners in this investigation.
And, you know, I think it is sad that, I mean, over my now
18 years in the Congress, to see how distrust wells up. And
when distrust wells up, it is very hard to get anything done,
period.
Mr. Rubin, I was watching you a minute ago when you talked
about Ambassador Stevens, and I watched you as you--you may not
have even realized it--became emotional talking about your
friend. And as you became emotional, I couldn't help but think
about all the other employees at State who are probably
watching this right now and how they go out and give their
blood, their sweat, their tears, away from their families, to
do the jobs that they do. So the first thing I want to do is
thank them.
Same thing for you, Mr. Higgins.
I mean, when I think about this effort that we are making--
and I don't care what anybody says--it is a search for the
truth. And be clear that what is one person's truth, somebody
else may say something opposite and that is their truth. But
our effort is to bring our heads together, our best efforts,
and hopefully have some trust to look at all the facts and come
to some conclusions.
Mr. Schiff was absolutely right. If we end this with a
Republican saying this and a Democrat saying that, what have we
really accomplished?
You know, one of the things that we did--and I thought it
was great that we did it--was to sit down and meet with the
families. And I made every one of those meetings. And it was
painful. It was painful. They did not ask for Republicans to
sit on one side of the room and Democrats to sit on the other.
They wanted us to sit down and work together, period. One of
the things that they said over and over and over and over
again, don't make this a political football. One of the family
members said, ``If you are going to do that, don't even
bother.'' They talked about how they wanted closure. They
talked about how they wanted us to truly work together.
And what we have asked for is to merely be partners, to do
what we were sworn to do, what we do every 2 years, and affirm
when we put up our hand and swear that we are going to support
the Constitution and we are going to support the people that we
represent.
And I have said it before, and I will say it again, and I
will say it until I die: Each one of us represents over 700,000
people, and all of us have value. All of us bring something to
the table. And so it should not be about the ``gotcha'' moment.
It should be about the ``big-picture'' moment. It should be
about how do we make sure that this does not happen again.
And, you know, as I listen to a lot of the discussion,
there was an issue of the question of whether the Democrats had
put forth witnesses. And the fact is that we need a scope, we
need an idea of what we are going after.
And I wouldn't even be here, wouldn't even be talking about
this if we didn't already have eight reports. And, I mean, we
talk about a surety, but, dammit, we have a situation where
millions of American taxpayers' dollars have been paid for
these reports. We have had Members of Congress that have been
paid to sit in hearings. We have staff members that have
produced those reports. And some of them are bipartisan. Some
of them are bipartisan.
And so, when the Democrats on this committee--while we were
waiting for things to move forward--we got our staff involved,
and we created something that answers questions. And contrary
to what the Chairman has said in writing, we weren't trying
to--we didn't say that these are things that we--we were not
judging the facts. We just went to the sworn testimony. We went
to the various documents on various hearings, documents that
had been presented, and just the very questions that had been
asked, the main questions. We just presented the documents.
``Just the facts, ma'am.''
Mr. Cummings. That is all we tried to do.
And then we said, now that we have done that, now that we
have that, let's see what it is that we can work together on,
if there is something, that has not been answered. Just want
some scope. And we have been asking for scope.
So, Mr. Rubin, you talked about priorities. The chairman
basically lays out, as I understand it, basically what he
wants. Have you been given priorities?
Mr. Rubin. Thank you, Mr. Cummings.
We have been given priorities, which is to ensure that in
the immediate term that we provide additional documents related
to a specific search for former Secretary Clinton as the top
priority, and the second priority is that the four DS agents,
that we work with them to help secure interviews.
Mr. Cummings. And how did that come about? In other words,
how did it come about that there was a list of priorities? How
did that happen? And why did it happen?
Mr. Rubin. It was initiated through the continual contact
and communications between staff and committee and our
officials, our personnel at State, including with the letters
on December 4th and at the end of November, I think November
18th, as well, that laid out those questions. And then through
engagement with staff it got refined.
Mr. Cummings. And, see, this is the thing. That is why we
need to have an idea of where we are going. And I assume that
the chairman's goal is to address certain issues in a certain
order, and he needs certain information. I agree with that,
that he needs certain information.
Mr. Rubin. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. But when it comes to priorities, he sets
those priorities, not you.
Mr. Rubin. We are responsive to the committee's priorities.
Mr. Cummings. And, now, tell me the priority list right
now. What is that list?
Mr. Rubin. It----
Mr. Cummings. Number one?
Mr. Rubin. Number one is the production of documents that
were requested regarding former officials, and the top of the
list, again, was Former Secretary Clinton. Number two is the
interviews of the four Diplomatic Security agents that we
referenced.
Those have been the ones that have been clearly
communicated. That is not to say that the other requests are
forgotten. That is not it at all. What it is is to say that
those are the issues, those are the items that we have worked
most diligently on.
We have a good story here, in that we are producing--within
several days, we will begin producing to the committee the
beginning of those documents that were requested. It has only
been 6 weeks, roughly, since the initial request and then about
a month of the finalization of that. And in between that, we
have prepared for hearings that didn't come about, we had the
holiday break. And then this hearing, as well, the request was
last Wednesday evening, and we are here this morning on
Tuesday.
Mr. Cummings. I just emphasize as I close that we have got
to--it is just not common ground, we have to move to higher
ground. That is what these families deserve, that is what the
American people deserve, and I think that is what we all want.
With that, I will yield back.
Chairman Gowdy. The gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. Jordan. Democrats asked for no hearings in August and
October, and now they complain. The Democrats picked the topic
for the first hearing, the ARB recommendations; now they
complain. Democrats asked and got a second hearing on the ARB
recommendations; now they complain. In that second hearing, Mr.
Smith, a member of the committee, was given a courtesy I have
not seen in my 8 years as a Member of Congress. He was given
the courtesy after surgery to call in and ask questions. Now
they complain. I mean, to suggest that the chairman has been
unfair is ridiculous on the face.
Now, the one thing they have said that makes some sense is
the pace is way too slow. And that is why we have you guys here
today, because we have got to pick up the pace and get to the
truth for the families that Mr. Cummings just referenced.
So, Mr. Rubin, I am going to start with an issue that I
dealt with in my work on the standing committee here in the
House and has carried over to this committee, and that is the
ARB process.
Are you familiar with the ARB process, Mr. Rubin?
Mr. Rubin. I am not the expert on the whole ARB process.
Mr. Jordan. Specifically, do you know something about the
Benghazi ARB process at all?
Mr. Rubin. Yes, I do in general terms. I know----
Mr. Jordan. We have had two hearings on it in this
committee, the first two hearings that the Democrats requested,
so it is a pretty important issue.
Mr. Rubin. And Secretary Starr came and testified on that.
Mr. Jordan. He sure did.
Now, many claim the ARB process and the ARB report was
independent. Mr. Cummings said this. He called it the
``independent Accountability Review Board.'' ``Their report was
independent.'' Gerry Connolly, another Member of Congress, said
it was the ``independent Accountability Review Board process.''
Greg Starr, who you just referenced, Mr. Rubin, a colleague of
yours who has testified twice in this committee, the first two
hearings, said this: ``Thank you for inviting me today''--this
was at the last hearing--``to provide insight on the
Department's progress to implement the recommendations made by
the independent Benghazi ARB.''
I mean, they use the term ``independent'' almost as if it
is part of the title, part of the official title.
Now, I think there are problems with that claim. Secretary
Clinton picked four of the five members of the board, of this
so-called independent board. Secretary Clinton was never
interviewed by this so-called independent board. Cheryl Mills,
her chief of staff, wasn't interviewed by this so-called
independent board. Cheryl Mills, her chief of staff, was given
a draft copy of the report before it went public to make edits
of this so-called independent board.
Admiral Mullen, a co-chair of the board, after interviewing
Charlene Lamb, an employee at the State Department, then called
up Cheryl Mills and said, ``Hey, Ms. Lamb is going to testify
in front of a congressional committee. She is not going to do a
good job. I am giving you a heads-up.'' So when the co-chair
gives a heads-up to the people he is supposed to be
investigating about a potential witness coming in front of
Congress, that doesn't really scream independence.
But, Mr. Rubin, let's assume they are all right. Let's
assume they got it right, that this is independent, in spite of
those facts, in spite of the fact the Secretary picked four of
the five people who are supposed to investigate her. I don't
know anywhere else in life where a potential subject of an
investigation gets to pick their investigators.
In spite of the fact she wasn't interviewed, in spite of
the fact Cheryl Mills wasn't interviewed, in spite of the fact
that they got a draft copy, in spite of all those facts, let's
just assume that Mr. Cummings and Mr. Connolly, Mr. Starr are
correct when they say ``independent,'' how do we test that
claim if you guys won't give us the documents? How do we test
the claim of independence if you guys won't let us see the
record?
Now, Mr. Rubin, you have had a subpoena, a subpoena
Congress issued in August of 2013, saying, we want every single
document, or, as the chairman has made clear, all documents
relating to the ARB investigation. We want to know, when are
you going to comply?
Mr. Rubin. Sir, as I previously mentioned----
Mr. Jordan. When are you going to put those ``top people''
that Mr. Roskam referenced, when are you going to put those
``top people'' on a subpoena that has been issued a year and a
half ago to get us the documents so we can test the claim that
this ARB was actually independent?
Mr. Rubin. Sir, as I just mentioned with Mr. Cummings, the
top two priorities that were communicated to us for the
immediate term were these interviews----
Mr. Jordan. Hey, hey, wait. This is what we have to get
past----
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. And these other documents. But we
are happy----
Mr. Jordan. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This is what we
have to get past, this ``priority'' line you keep using.
Mr. Rubin. Okay.
Mr. Jordan. The subpoena was August 2013. We are not
talking a couple months ago. We are talking a year and a half
ago. So you have top people working on it--here is the point:
You can't have it both ways. You can't claim, oh, this was the
independent, be-all, end-all, definitive statement that the ARB
made on Benghazi, and then not let us see the record.
All we are saying is, okay, we will accept this fact. We
don't think it is independent, we will accept it. Show us the
record.
Mr. Rubin. So we had two hearings with Secretary Starr
about the ARB implementation. The ARBs themselves are crucial
to providing security for our people. That is why they are
there.
And the document request that you are referencing, there
are documents, as well, in the 40,000 pages of documents that
are related----
Mr. Jordan. Okay.
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. To the ARB, as well.
Mr. Jordan. That is where I wanted to go. You are right
where I wanted to go, Mr. Rubin.
You have given us 40,000 documents. Contained in that
40,000 documents are--within that 40,000 documents is every
document that the ARB received from the State Department. So
the State Department gave the ARB a bunch of documents. Are
everything the ARB had contained in that 40,000?
Mr. Rubin. I have not read all 40,000 pages.
Mr. Jordan. No, no, I am not telling you----
Mr. Rubin. I cannot----
Mr. Jordan. I don't expect you have read them.
Mr. Rubin. I don't want to misstate that, but----
Mr. Jordan. Have we received everything that ARB received?
Mr. Rubin. Again, sir, I did not----
Mr. Jordan. Simple question.
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. Draft the ARB, and I have not read
all 40,000 pages. I am here to convey to the House, to the
committee, what it is that we are working on. So the----
Mr. Jordan. The documents--it is a simple question.
Mr. Rubin. It is not something I----
Mr. Jordan. This is the key question. The documents the ARB
got from the State Department, are they in the 40,000 that we
now have? Every single thing that the ARB got from the State
Department, are they in the 40,000 documents we now have?
``Yes'' or ``no''?
Mr. Rubin. The document request----
Mr. Jordan. Well, then you can say ``I don't know.''
Mr. Rubin. The document request was related more broadly to
an overall search for documents from the State Department.
Now, as far as the ARB investigation, it is important to
also recognize that ARBs over time need to stand the
independence, as you have cited----
Mr. Jordan. And, Mr. Rubin----
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. And that is for the security of our
personnel.
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Rubin, there are two components to this
subpoena. There is what I was just talking about. Does this
committee now have everything that the State Department gave to
the Accountability Review Board? That is question one.
Question two is: The notes, the records, the files, the
interview notes, everything that the ARB compiled in their
investigation, we want those too. Does this committee have
those notes, records, and files that the five-member ARB panel
had? Do we have that information?
Mr. Rubin. Again, I cannot tell you specifically every
single document----
Mr. Jordan. It is my understanding we don't.
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. Has been in there. But, again, if
the committee tells us that that is in their priorities and
sequencing----
Mr. Jordan. No, we----
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. The number-one thing--
Mr. Jordan. We don't have to tell you that.
Mr. Rubin [continuing].--I am happy to convey that back and
have us move on that.
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Rubin, are you familiar with the statute,
the statute that created the ARB? Says this:
Mr. Rubin. 1986. Yes.
Mr. Jordan. ``Records pertaining to administrative
proceedings under the ARB process shall be separated''--
``shall,'' not ``may''--``shall be separated from all other
records of the Department of State and shall be maintained.''
So here is the point. You should have a file already, with
everything nicely and neatly organized, of all the documents
that the State Department gave the ARB and all the notes,
files, and records that the ARB compiled in their
investigation. When they did the interviews, how many people
they interviewed, did they interview them alone, did they do it
in groups--you should have all that in a file. That should be
the simplest thing in the world to hand over to us, and you
haven't done it.
And yet--and yet--everyone claims the ARB was independent.
How can we test the claim when you won't give us what the
statute requires--a separated, segregated file on what the ARB
did--and you guys keep it?
Mr. Rubin. Part of the core integrity of the ARB----
Mr. Jordan. Do you have that file separated and segregated
like the statute requires?
Mr. Rubin. Sir, the core integrity of the ARB is reliant
upon discretion----
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Rubin----
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. And the ability of these people----
Mr. Jordan [continuing]. These questions are so simple. Is
there a segregated file like the ARB statute requires? Do you
have that separated, segregated, ready-to-hand-over-to-us-at--a
long time ago, frankly, but do you have it separated and
segregated?
Mr. Rubin. I would have to go and ask our experts about
that. Again, I----
Mr. Jordan. This is amazing.
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. Am the liaison to the House.
Mr. Jordan. You were invited to come here today to tell us
about the documents. The statute says you are supposed to have
them separated and segregated, ready to--maintaining those, and
you don't even know if you have them and can't give them to us?
Mr. Rubin. No, I am not saying that. I am saying that I am
going to get our experts----
Mr. Jordan. You are saying you don't know. I got that
answer.
Mr. Rubin [continuing]. To help convey that.
Mr. Jordan. One last----
Mr. Rubin. I want to get you the proper information.
Mr. Jordan. One last thing, Mr. Chairman.
In the article you wrote 1 month after four Americans were
tragically killed, one of them a friend of yours and a great
Ambassador, in the article you wrote that Mr. Roskam cited
earlier, you talked about not rushing to judgment. And you
specifically said we should wait to get all the facts out--
direct quote from your guest blogger column.
And here is the irony. Wait to get all the facts--you said
``wait to get all the facts,'' and now you are the guy who can
give us the facts. You are the guy who should have the ARB file
separate, segregated, ready to hand over, and you guys won't do
it, after you had said that a month after this tragedy. And now
this should be ready to be give over to us, and the State
Department is saying, well, keep prioritizing, we have top
people on it, keep getting in line, we are working with you, we
promise we will work with you, we are going to get to it
someday, sometime, somehow.
It is not going to fly, Mr. Rubin.
Mr. Rubin. Sir, we have been proactive with the committee.
We have provided briefings that the committee didn't request.
And we are always open to, as I stated earlier, to have these--
--
Mr. Jordan. The subpoena was a year and a half ago. I don't
know how you can say you have been proactive and helpful when
you won't even comply with the statute and give us what the law
requires you to give us and have it segregated and separated
for us, and, oh, by the way, claim independence in the process.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Gowdy. I thank the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. Rubin and Mr. Higgins, I think both of you have
something in common with every member of the committee, which
is a deep and abiding respect for the four people who gave
their lives for this country. So I think that you share our
desire to do what the House instructed us to do.
And you will note the Department of Justice is not at the
table. You made reference, Mr. Rubin, to the Department of
Justice. Ms. Saanchez made a reference to the Department of
Justice. And I asked her to yield time so I could clarify that,
and she is well within her rights not to do so.
The Department of Justice did write us a letter, and we met
with them, and we addressed the concerns that they had about
protecting the integrity of their prosecution, which I can
assure you, given my former line of work, I want them to be
wildly successful with their prosecution. So I would never do
anything to jeopardize that. We met, we discussed it, we worked
out the issues. They are not at the table. That is why they are
not at the table.
I don't enjoy these hearings. I would rather have a hearing
about substance, not about process. I don't want another
hearing like this. But when my colleagues are complaining about
the pace--and I have colleagues on this side, which I never
thought I would ever hear in my life, say that I am too
polite--I never thought I would hear that. I hope my three
sisters are watching. We are going to have to ratchet it up,
and if the letters don't work, then we are going to have to
resort to a more formal legal process, because I want this
concluded.
And I will note--I don't think any of my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle have had an opportunity to highlight
this point yet, but I am sure that they would agree with me--
there has not been a single leak of anything that either of you
have provided to us. There has not been a single selective
release of information, not one.
So the people on this committee take their responsibility
seriously. This is not a political exercise for us. Most of the
people who ask me about Benghazi, I could not tell you their
political ideation, if they have one. They just want to know
what happened. And I intend to tell them, and I intend to tell
them sooner rather than later.
So the letters haven't worked, and the southern politeness
has not worked. We are going to ratchet it up. Because I need
access to the documents and the witnesses, and we need to be
able to conclude our work.
With that----
Mr. Cummings. Would the gentlemen yield----
Chairman Gowdy. Certainly.
Mr. Cummings [continuing]. Just for one question?
You know, as I listened a few moments ago to the last
questioner I just want to make sure that the--consistent with
what you just said, us getting the job done--that apparently
they have priorities that are being set, and I want to make
sure that they have the proper instructions.
I mean, on the one hand, we have some Members saying, you
know, give them everything and don't worry about priorities.
But, on the other hand, they say that you have set certain
priorities. And I just--I mean, I want to make sure that they
are clear as to the marching orders--that is all.
Chairman Gowdy. Well, that is a great question, Mr.
Cummings. And in a perfect world when people ask you for
priorities, that is exactly what they want. They want to know
what your priorities are, because they intend on complying with
all of your requests. They just want to know what are we going
to do tomorrow and what are we going to do the next day and
what are we going to do the next day. After a year and a half
of waiting on compliance with a subpoena, the argument that we
need priorities just rings a little bit hollow.
And if I were to tell you--if I were to tell you, I want
you to prioritize Mr. Cummings' emails, then someone is going
to spin that into that we don't care about the other people's
emails, we are just obsessed with the gentleman from Maryland,
we don't care about any other witness. So I am not going to
fall for that. I am not going to fall for the trick of telling
you what is really important. It is all important. That is why
the word ``all'' is in the resolution.
So I can't tell you. I can tell you this: if you start
producing documents on a regular basis, consistent with our
request, nobody is going to complain to you that you are not
giving them to us in the order in which we want them.
Mr. Cummings. Will the gentleman yield?
Chairman Gowdy. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. The reason why I asked that question is
because it is my understanding that your staff had told them
that it was okay to not make the top priority the ARB
information--and you can correct me if I am wrong--and then
concentrate on the other things.
Is that right? Is that----
Mr. Rubin. That is my understanding.
Mr. Cummings. Yeah.
And so all I am saying is, I just want--I understand what
you are saying, and it makes a lot of sense. I just want to
make sure that we are clear. And that way, we--you talk about
not wanting to have more hearings. I understand that, too. But
then I don't want folks to be in a position where they come
back and say, well, you said one thing, and we tried to do what
you asked us to do, and then there is--I don't want any wiggle
room, I guess.
Chairman Gowdy. And I appreciate the gentleman from
Maryland's point. I guess my point would be that this committee
did not even become constituted until last May.
So what was the priority between the time Oversight sent
you the subpoena on the ARB and this committee even coming into
existence? Because God knows it couldn't have been anything we
asked for.
So you kind of get my point. I mean, you can't wait a year
and a half and say, well, we didn't give it to you because we
didn't realize it was a priority.
Mr. Rubin. We were producing significant numbers of
documents throughout that period. We have been producing
documents practically every month since October of 2012.
Chairman Gowdy. I understand that, but it has been how many
years now?
Mr. Rubin. Unfortunately, 2 and a quarter.
Chairman Gowdy. Right. And I realize there are some people,
including people within the administration, that think Benghazi
happened a long time ago. I can tell you, for the folks that
are waiting on answers, including the family members that both
of us met with, it might as well have been yesterday. So they
want the truth.
And nothing gets better with time. Memories do not improve.
Documents get misplaced. Recollections fade. That is why we
have a speedy trial clock. It is ironic, the Department of
Justice has to try Khattala within a certain period of time for
that very reason.
So to ask me to prioritize, when all of it is important, I
am not going to fall for that trap, no, siree--okay.
With that, having said that--I want to repeat it again. I
have no interest in having another hearing like this. Zero.
None.
And I don't think for a second that you are the
decisionmaker at the State Department, no offense to you. I
don't think you decide which documents to produce and which
ones--don't. So what I would like you to do is go back to your
department and say, I don't want to go back there.
So let's find a way to be in compliance with the request
sooner rather than later so the committee can do its job, and
then we can all produce a product that we can take pride in,
that answers the questions, and we can all go back to whatever
we were doing before the Speaker asked us to do this. Okay?
Fair enough?
Mr. Rubin. Thank you. We are happy to.
Chairman Gowdy. All right. Thank you.
With that, we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:51 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[all]