House Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) says former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was not “cooperative” during last Thursday’s 11-hour interview before the panel. Gowdy said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Clinton answered all of the questions without complaint, but added that she did not give complete or entirely truthful answers.
“She answered the questions, and I would note I don’t think I ever cut her off. She was given ample opportunity, so she answered the questions, yeah, if that’s your definition of cooperative,” Gowdy said.
“I’ve always also injected an element of wholeness and completeness and also truthfulness in the definition of cooperative,” he added.
“Did she cooperate in answering the question? Yes. Was it an accurate answer? No.”
Gowdy also said the former first lady wanted her testimony to be open to the public.
“I didn’t send a subpoena to secretary Clinton, it was a voluntary interview, and she wanted it to be in public,” Gowdy said. “I wrote a letter several months ago giving her an option, and she chose public, and that’s well within her right.”
The South Carolina lawmaker said private hearings closed off from the media often feature much less political grandstanding than public ones.
“I can just tell you that of the 50-some-odd interviews that we have done thus far, the vast majority of them have been private, and you don’t see the bickering among the members of Congress in private interviews, you don’t see any of that,” he said.
He said future interviews investigating the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, will be held privately.
“I can just tell you, in the private interviews, there is never any of what you saw Thursday. It is one hour on the Republican side, one hour on the Democrat side, which is why you’re going to see the next two dozen interviews done privately,” he said.
“The private ones always produce better results.”
