Issa Demands Key State Department Official in Benghazi Controversy Turn Over Emails

Official Wrote of “Building Leadership” Concerns about Talking Points

WASHINGTON – Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., sent a letter seeking more information about why State Department leadership was concerned by the original talking points drafted following the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi.

In a letter to Victoria Nuland, a State Department official involved in the drafting of the talking points, Issa writes, “One of your e-mails made clear that some of your colleagues at the State Department headquarters shared these concerns.  You wrote that changes to the talking points did not ‘resolve all my issues or those of my building leadership.’”

In response to a subpoena from the Committee on May 28, 2013, the State Department produced 97 pages of documents. The State Department’s response was incomplete and failed to make fully clear who Nuland had been communicating with about Benghazi related concerns, “[n]one of the 97 pages that the State Department produced… made clear what the ‘issues’ those in your ‘building leadership’ were concerned about,” writes Issa. “In fact, nearly all of the 97 pages produced by the Department had been previously released to the media by the White House.  The State Department continues to refuse to make the documents available that would clarify what aspects of the talking points your bosses were concerned about.”

“Your e-mail makes clear that Department leadership shared concerns with you about the draft talking points,” the letter to Nuland concludes. “It is my hope and expectation that the documents I am requesting will identify those concerns, and whose concerns they were.”

You can read a complete copy of the letter here.