Hillary Clinton To Testify Before Benghazi Panel In October

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton listens to a speaker during a campaign stop Wednesday, June 17, 2015, in Santee, S.C. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton will testify Oct. 22 before the House committee investigating the deaths of four Americans in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, her presidential campaign said Saturday.

The committee did not immediately confirm the date for the former secretary of state’s appearance.

Campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said the Democratic candidate’s testimony will be public. Clinton’s lawyers and the Republican-led committee have been negotiating over the terms under which she might appeal before the committee.

The chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., initially requested a private interview.

The testimony, in the months leading up to the first presidential nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, is likely to reverberate through the 2016 race. Gowdy’s committee is investigating the deaths of U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in the attack on the diplomatic facility in Libya. At the time, Clinton was the country’s top diplomat.

In recent months, the inquiry has devolved into a political fight over Clinton’s emails and private computer server. Republicans have seized upon revelations that Clinton chose to use a private email server, instead of a government one, and later deleted thousands of emails she said were not related to her work.

On Friday, government investigators disclosed that they had recently alerted the Justice Department to the potential compromise of classified information from Clinton’s server.

The inspector general of the U.S. intelligence community sent a memo to members of Congress saying that “potentially hundreds of classified emails” were among those that Clinton had provided to the State Department.

Clinton last testified at two congressional hearings in January 2013, when she denied that the Obama administration tried to mislead the country about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks. She took responsibility for the department’s missteps and said it was attempting to strengthen security at diplomatic posts worldwide.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed to this report.

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Follow Ken Thomas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kthomasdc

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  1. Finally we will hear how her and Obama conspired to kill Ambassador Stevens, who obviously “knew too much” and was about to go public in a blockbuster interview with Glen Beck…

  2. This is mid-July, Mrs Clinton has been readily available for several months already to appear before the House Committee … and now, we have to wait until the latter part of October? What possible information can be gleaned from perusing the 55,000 pages in another four months?

    Or is it that Republicans have calculated we’ll be over The Donald by then, and with a week to go before Halloween, it’ll be time to finally get Serious?

  3. Hillary Clinton to Testify Before Benghazi Panel in October

    Hillary Clinton to Testify Before BENGHAZI!!™ Panel in October

    FIFY

  4. Howdy Gowdy will only allow private testimony from Clinton for two reasons: 1] That’s the only way he can selectively release, twist and distort any testimony she may give and 2] when Clinton refuses, insisting only a public hearing, Hop-a-long-Gowdy can proclaim that Clinton refused to testify, so she must becovering something up! It’s a win-win.

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