House Speaker John Boehner has condemned former first lady Hillary Clinton for using a personal email account while conducting her official duties as secretary of state.
"President [Barack] Obama frequently promised that his would be 'the most transparent administration in history,'" said Boehner in a press release from his office. "Perhaps he forgot to mention this commitment to his first secretary of state?"
The personal email account, first reported by The New York Times, was uncovered by the House Select Committee on Benghazi investigating the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi as it sought correspondence between Clinton and her aides about the attack.
The committee was sent about 300 emails, amounting to 900 pages, by the State Department about the Benghazi siege in Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, including two Navy SEALS.
But it has now transpired that because Clinton had kept a private email account, certain documents possibly pertaining to the attack may not have been handed over to the Benghazi committee, which was created by Boehner.
While attempting to comply with new State Department rules on federal record-keeping, two months ago Clinton aides reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails to decide which ones should be turned over to the agency, according to reports.
A total of 55,000 pages of emails were eventually given by Clinton to the State Department, said Boehner's press release, citing the Times, which reported that Clinton's private account "shielded her" from the agency's searches of her official work during her tenure in the Obama administration.
"How many emails were in Mrs. Clinton's account is not clear, and neither is the process her advisers used to determine which ones related to her work at the State Department before turning them over," Boehner said in the press release, suggesting a lack of transparency.
South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the special committee on Benghazi, said in a statement on Tuesday that the fact the Benghazi committee was able "to uncover this previously unknown, and before today unreported, information speaks to the need for the Benghazi committee."
He continued, "The fact that the committee does not rush to trumpet every single discovery we make during the pendency of our investigation, in my judgment, speaks to the commitment that the people behind me … have to conduct a fair and impartial investigation into what happened before, during, and after Benghazi.
"Our interest here is not in producing a story. Our interest here is in gaining access to all of the documents, all of the emails, all of the witnesses, and producing a final and definitive accounting and one that is frankly worthy of the sacrifice of our four fellow Americans and worthy of the respect of our fellow citizens."
Boehner's office noted that last month Gowdy announced the committee would be interviewing 20 current and former Obama administration officials, as well as Hillary Clinton, but only after receiving all of her relevant documents, including notes and emails.
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