The five Democrats on the special House committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks have released portions of a transcript from the panel's closed-door interview with a top aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, claiming they want to "correct the record" before the Democratic presidential front-runner testifies Oct. 22, reported the Hill.
The Democratic minority claim that Republicans on the committee have been leaking inaccurate and selective snippets of Cheryl Mills' nine-hour-long Sept. 3 testimony. Monday, they began "the process of correcting the public record," in defiance of Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the Benghazi committee.
Mills was Clinton's chief of staff at the State Department when militants attacked the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, Sept. 11, 2012, which left four Americans dead. The committee is investigating the attack and looking into Clinton's role in safeguarding the compound.
The committee's Democrats gave Gowdy and the State Department five days to say whether portions of the full transcript should remain private for national security reasons, otherwise, the full transcript will be released, according to Reuters.
"We believe it is time to begin releasing the transcripts of interviews conducted by the Select Committee in order to correct the public record after numerous inaccurate Republican leaks, and we plan to begin this process by releasing the full transcript of Ms. Mills' interview," the panel's Democrats wrote in the letter.
In the meantime, Democrats revealed several key portions of Mills' testimony, including sections they say refute Republican allegations that Clinton was unengaged during the attack and that her staff swayed the outcome of a State Department inquiry conducted after the attack, according to USA Today.
"During Ms. Mills' interview... she debunked numerous Republican conspiracy theories that have been made for several years ― and that continue to be repeated even today ― yet Republicans did not make any of that information public," wrote the Democrats.
"[Clinton] was pretty emphatic about wanting whatever to be done and whatever were assets that could be deployed, if that was both effective and possible to be done," Mills told the committee, according to Reuters.
Republicans said the Democrats had violated House rules by releasing the partial transcript, and accused them of trying to help Clinton "without regard for the integrity of the investigation," according to the Hill.
"Most Democrats on the Benghazi Committee have endorsed Clinton, and they are now running a protection effort for the former secretary," said Jamal Ware, a spokesman for Gowdy.
"It is one thing to merely sit idly by while others do serious work, it is quite another to attempt to undercut that work with selective leaks in violation of House Rules."
