Former secretary of state and all-but-declared presidential candidate Hillary Clinton says she's ready to testify before the House committee investigating the Benghazi terror attack.
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Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Republican who leads the House Select Committee on Benghazi, summoned Clinton Tuesday morning to sit for a private interview with the committee before May 1. Clinton has previous said she is ready and willing to testify, and a spokesperson reiterated that position Tuesday afternoon.
"Secretary Clinton already told the committee months ago that she was ready to appear at a public hearing. It is by their choice that hasn’t happened. To be clear, she remains ready to appear at a hearing open to the American public," spokesperson Nick Merrill said.
Clinton, according to the top Democrat on the House Benghazi committee, had hoped to testify as early as December of last year. Gowdy, however, says he will not bring Clinton before a public hearing of the committee until he can be assured that she has turned over any emails relating to Benghazi from the private email server she used while serving as secretary of state.
Eyeing a presidential campaign launch in the coming weeks, Clinton would like to put the issue behind her and get the process over with. Clinton's use of a private email server has dominated headlines in recent weeks and become a key issue in the nascent 2016 presidential campaign.
Clinton will likely have to appear before the committee twice, once for the private, transcribed meeting, and the second time for a public hearing. Neither meetings have apparently been scheduled yet.