Rep. Darrell Issa said Sunday that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did uphold public integrity and may have broken the law when she used personal email for State Department business.
The Republican who represents north San Diego and south Orange Counties spoke on CNN‘s “State of the Union.” Issa’s House Oversight Committee began an investigation of the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, before turning the matter over to a new House Select Committee on Benghazi.
Issa said Clinton’s failure to initially acknowledge use of personal email for State Department business was not in itself a crime, but was not proper and added that failure to respond to a subpoena would be a crime.
“So did she comply with the public integrity requirement? No, she didn’t. Did she break a law for which there is a penalty? Not really,” said Issa. “But there’s a big difference between being open, transparent, honest and having public integrity and only when you get caught do you turn in documents.”
But, he stressed that “in fact it will be a crime if she knowingly withholds documents pursuant to subpoena.”
So far, the State Department has turned over about 900 of the pages of personal email to the Benghazi committee.
