http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/the-long-complicated-story-of-hillary-clintons-benghazi-subpoena/article/2562232
Now that the public knows Hillary Clinton destroyed all the emails on her secret server ? her lawyer told the House Benghazi Select Committee that there's nothing left to search ? a question remains: Did Clinton destroy documents that were under subpoena from Congress?
The answer is more complex than it might seem. There's no doubt Clinton withheld information that Congress demanded she turn over, and some Republicans believe the documents she destroyed were covered under a subpoena as well. But a look at the story behind the subpoena and other document requests from congressional Benghazi investigators is a tale of obstruction, delay and frustration that underscores the limits of Congress' power to investigate Benghazi. Clinton and her aides had the means to make life very difficult for Republicans trying to learn the full story of the attacks in Libya, and they did just that.
The subpoena story began on Sept. 20, 2012, nine days after the attacks. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who was chairman of the House Oversight Committee's Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, sent a letter to then-Secretary of State Clinton asking for "all information ? related to the attack on the consulate." Chaffetz specifically asked for all analyses, whether classified or unclassified, on the security situation leading up to the Benghazi attack, plus, among other things, all analyses that either supported or contradicted UN Ambassador Susan Rice's assertion that the attack was the spontaneous result of outrage over an anti-Muslim video. The short version of the letter was that Chaffetz demanded "all information" on Benghazi.
Just to be clear, the Chaffetz letter included standard language telling Clinton, "In complying with this request, you are required to produce all responsive documents that are in your possession, custody, or control, whether held by you or your past or present agents, employees, and representatives acting on your behalf." The letter went on to include this standard definition:
The term "document" refers to any written, recorded, or graphic matter of any nature whatsoever, regardless of how recorded, and whether original or copy, including, but not limited to, the following: memoranda, reports, expense reports, books, manuals, instructions, financial reports, working papers, records, notes, letters, notices, confirmations, telegrams, receipts, appraisals, pamphlets, magazines, newspapers, prospectuses, inter-office and intra-office communications, electronic mail (e-mail), contracts, cables, notations of any type of conversation, telephone call, meeting or other communication, bulletins, printed matter, computer printouts, teletypes, invoices, transcripts, diaries, analyses, returns, summaries, minutes, bills, accounts, estimates, projections, comparisons, messages, correspondence, press releases, circulars, financial statements, reviews, opinions, offers, studies and investigations, questionnaires and surveys, and work sheets (and all drafts, preliminary versions, alterations, modifications, revisions, changes, and amendments of any of the foregoing, as well as any attachments or appendices thereto), and graphic or oral records or representations of any kind (including, without limitation, photographs, charts, graphs, microfiche, microfilm, videotape, recordings and motion pictures), and electronic, mechanical and electric records or representations of any kind (including, without limitation, tapes, cassettes, disks, and recordings) and other written, printed, typed or other graphic or recorded matter of any kind or nature, however produced or reproduced, and whether preserved in writing, film, tape, disk, videotape or otherwise. A document bearing any notation not a part of the original text is to be considered a separate document. A draft or non-identical copy is a separate document within the meaning of this term.
In other words, the committee wanted everything.
The State Department, as is now well known, was slow to respond. But after months of delay, State officials told the committee they would hand over material ? but only for what is called "in camera" review, meaning State retained possession of the papers at all time and no documents could leave the room in which committee investigators were allowed to view them. State agreed to bring documents to a reading room selected by the committee, where committee investigators could look them over and make handwritten notes. Over the course of months, the number of pages grew to 25,000, which State Department officials told the committee was everything related to Benghazi.
"The State Department actively told us that they were cooperating with us," says one Hill Republican with knowledge of the investigation. "They made representations that the documents in the reading room were complete and responsive."
But the committee was not given possession of the material. Each day, State officials brought the documents to the reading room, and at the end of each day they took them away and stored them in an office maintained by the military in the Rayburn House Office Building.
"So we entered into an arrangement in which they're supposed to give us all the documents related to Benghazi," recalls the House Republican. "So they start carting these documents into a reading room. They carted in boxes and boxes and by the time [the House Select Committee on Benghazi] was created, they are carting in 25,000 pages of documents every day. The minority had their own copy. And they were stored in one of the military offices in Rayburn. The State Department guy would keep them locked up overnight."
The routine got old fast. Republicans (and Democrats, for that matter) couldn't copy the documents and couldn't use them at hearings. Chaffetz and Rep. Darrell Issa, then the chairman of the full Oversight and Government Reform Committee, became frustrated. In response to their protests, the State Department stressed that it had made all the relevant documents available, even if under restrictive conditions. State has "provided Congress with access to documents, comprising over 25,000 pages to date, including communications of senior Department officials regarding the security situation in Benghazi," State official Thomas Gibbons wrote to Issa on March 29, 2013.
That did nothing to quiet Republican unhappiness. The problem came to a head on Aug. 1, 2013, when the committee issued a subpoena to the State Department. (It was officially directed to new Secretary of State John Kerry.) The subpoena ordered Kerry to produce:
All documents that have been made available to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for in camera review, including, but not limited to, the approximately 25,000 pages of documents referenced in the March 29, 2013, letter from Acting Assistant
