Did you know that you can respond to a congressional committe's investigative inquiry by having your lawyer negotiate with the committee chair? Neither did I, and actually neither does anyone because it doesn't work that way. But Hillary Clinton doesn't care how it works. She only cares about what benefits her, and she has no interest in having to answer questions about Benghazi or about her private e-mail server.
So, Trey Gowdy, consider yourself fortunate enough for the inch she's agreed to give you - and don't even think about asking for a mile. You'll be hearing from her lawyer:
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton rejected the Benghazi probe’s request that she testify twice, saying she will appear once, in public, to talk about the 2012 terrorist attack and her controversial email practices, and will stay as long as there are questions from the panel.
David E. Kendall, the Clintons’ personal lawyer, told Rep. Trey Gowdy, the chief of the Benghazi probe, that it is unfair to try to make Mrs. Clinton testify twice — once privately about her email habits and once publicly about the attack on the diplomatic compound.
“There is no basis, logic or precedent for such an unusual request,” Mr. Kendall said, insisting she has turned over all of her emails that she deems to be public business, albeit two years after she left office.
The letter, which congressional Democrats released to the public, appeared to be a move to try to put pressure on congressional Republicans to finish their investigation as quickly as possible. Mrs. Clinton is now an announced presidential candidate, and she faces a number of other questions over her behavior during her time as secretary of state.
Mr. Gowdy’s spokesman said they have the letter but didn’t say whether they will accede to Mrs. Clinton’s demand, saying only they will take it “into consideration.”
Politicians who thumb their noses at the law get away with it, exactly what kinds of leaders do you think you're going to end up with? See the picture up top? There's your answer.
Let's actually take Kendall's argument seriously enough to deconstruct it. He claims there is "no basis, logic or precedent" for the "unusual request" of asking Hillary to testify once on Benghazi and then again about her e-mail. That's a load of crap. It's perfectly consistent with normal congressional practice that you have a hearing on a given matter and you have people testify about that matter. Then, if there's another matter, you hold separate hearings about that and have the people involved testify about that.
Is Kendall seriously suggesting that no one has ever been called to testify before Congress on more than one occasion because the testimony involved two different topics?
What would almost certainly be unprecedented is for a committee to call one person to testify and then proceed to cover a variety of seemingly unrelated issues. When has that ever been done? Of course, it's possible there is a link between Benghazi and Hillary's e-mail but we can't know that at this point because she deleted all the e-mails she didn't want exposed.
It doesn't matter anyway. Gowdy's committee can hold a hearing on Benghazi and call Hillary because she was Secretary of State at the time it happened. It can hold another hearing about her use of e-mail and call her because she's the person at the center of the investigation. If she doesn't like being called so much, maybe she should have done her job better so there wouldn't be so many things to investigate.
If she disobeys a subpoena, she could be forcibly brought in to testify. Of course, she's a Clinton, and she's counting on the idea that Republicans don't dare actually enforce the law by doing such a thing because it won't go over well politically. That's how they get away with breaking the law all the time. They know what could technically happen to them, but they calculate that Republicans won't take the political risk of actually doing it, and they're usually right.
So Americans, I ask: If you're going to punish the people who enforce the law because you don't like the methods available to do it, and the result is that politicians who thumb their noses at the law get away with it, exactly what kinds of leaders do you think you're going to end up with? See the picture up top? There's your answer.
