Benghazi chairman says he wants probe ‘done before 2016’

The leader of the House Select Committee on Benghazi on Thursday denied that his panel is dragging out its investigation to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said such a conclusion “assumes the report would be critical of her. I don’t make that assumption.”

{mosads}“We’re still in the process of gathering facts. If the report is not critical of her, then she would probably want it to come out closer to the election. But it’s not going to come out in the middle of 2016. I hope it doesn’t come out in 2016, period. I hope we are done before the end of this year,” he said Wednesday during an interview with Fox News’s “On the Record.”

“I want it done before 2016,” he later added.

Gowdy made the remarks the same day his staff signaled the select committee’s report into the deadly 2012 assault that left four American dead would be released sometime next year, when the race for the White House will be well underway.

Democrats pounced on the news, saying it confirmed their fears that the panel was only created to damage Clinton.

Clinton attorney David Kendall wrote Gowdy on Wednesday to say there was “no reason” to delay her appearance before the committee or have her testify in a private interview about her use of a personal email server while serving as secretary of State.

Gowdy responded to Kendall’s missive with a statement saying he would release a “reasonable path forward” on Clinton’s appearances sometime Thursday.

In the Fox interview, Gowdy said the panel’s inquiry had been delayed because the State, Justice and Defense departments have slow-rolled document requests, some of which are two years old.

He also noted that the investigation slowed with the revelation about Clinton’s server, which has yielded around 300 emails.

“We had eight [emails] in November of 2014. So if I had done what they asked me to do and expedited this, I would have had a conversation with her in the dark. I would not have had had her emails,” Gowdy said.

The former federal prosecutor said he understands some observers believe his wanting Clinton to appear twice before the committee — once in classified setting on her emails and again in a regular hearing on the attacks — is “vindictive,” but said “we are trying to do this the right way, which is gather the evidence and have a single conversation with her about Benghazi.”

Gowdy said that the panel would conduct four interview witnesses this week, as opposed to two, in a bid to speed up the investigation. 

A Democratic committee aide expressed skepticism about that goal.

“The Select Committee has never done four interviews a week, does not have four interviews scheduled for this week, and does not currently have any interviews scheduled past today,” the aide told The Hill.

— This story was updated at 12:22 p.m.