The chairman of the House panel investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, on Friday ridiculed the State Department’s responses to requests for documents.
“It is still like pulling teeth to get the information,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) told CNN on Friday.
{mosads}“But you know what we got last week? We got 3,600 pages, half of which were press clippings, including articles about Richard Gere,” he said.
“So if that is their idea of complying with congressional investigations, then we are going to be at this a long time.”
The State Department last week handed over 3,600 pages of fresh correspondence to the select committee.
The document trove included emails from Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations at the time of the deadly 2012 assault; Cheryl Mills, Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff; and former Clinton aide Jake Sullivan. The files were provided in response to a subpoena the GOP-controlled panel issued in March.
The delivery was the latest in a series of document dumps from the State Department to the House panel, as the committee continues its investigation of the deadly Benghazi assault, which killed four Americans when Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, was running the State Department.
In February, the State Department delivered 296 emails, or 850 pages, of emails related to Libya and the attacks from the private server Clinton used while at Foggy Bottom.
In May, the department turned over 1,200 pages of emails from one of Clinton’s top aides.
Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, has repeatedly chided the State Department for responding too slowly to the panel’s subpoena.
He recently announced that he’s called on Jon Finer, Secretary of State John Kerry’s chief of staff, to appear before the panel to discuss the agency’s “total recalcitrance at allowing Congress to investigate” and that Kerry himself could be made to appear.
The timing for Finer’s testimony is unclear, as talks over Iran’s nuclear program continue overseas.