State won’t say if Kerry would testify before Benghazi panel

The State Department on Monday declined to say if Secretary of State John Kerry would be willing to appear before the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

“Look, I’m not going to speak to what he may or may not do. In fact, we’ve gotten no requests for that,” agency spokesman Mark Toner said during a press briefing. 

{mosads}He stressed that State has “worked extremely hard to be responsive to the select committee’s requests,” noting that the department has handed over 300 emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s personal email server, 44,000 pages of other documents and made 21 witnesses available. 

On Sunday, Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-.S.C.) said he would bring the nation’s top diplomat before the 12-member panel if it does not get “satisfaction” from testimony by Kerry’s chief of staff Jon Finer.

“If I don’t get satisfaction from that public interaction with his chief of staff, the next person to come explain to Congress why he has been so recalcitrant in turning over documents will be the secretary himself,” Gowdy said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Democrats have accused the GOP of dragging their feet on the investigation in the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and politicizing the probe in an attempt to hamstring Clinton’s presidential bid.

But Gowdy and his fellow Republicans have placed the blame squarely on Clinton’s old department. 

“I am happy to conclude this investigation just as soon as John Kerry decides that he is going to give us the documents that we are entitled to,” according to Gowdy.