A House committee has issued more subpoenas to past and current State Department officials in the continuing investigation into the September 11 2012 attack on a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, according to CNN.
The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Darrel Issa, R-Calif., has sent the subpoenas to 10 officials including a spokesman and the number 2 official in the agency, reports the Miami Herald.
The committee has said that the State Department has repeatedly refused to cooperate with the investigation and release all of the necessary documents, according to Fox News.
"The State Department has not lived up to the administration's broad and unambiguous promises of cooperation with Congress," Issa said in a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry. "Therefore, I am left with no alternative but to compel the State Department to produce relevant documents through a subpoena."
A spokesman for the State Department, Patrick Ventrell, said that the department has released thousands of documents and has cooperated with the committee.
"We have demonstrated an unprecedented degree of cooperation with the Congress on the issue of Benghazi, engaging in over 30 hearings and briefings for members and staff, and sharing over 25,000 pages of documents with committees," Ventrell told Fox News. "All of us - in the administration, in Congress, in the media - we should all be focused on the issue of protecting the American diplomats and development experts who are working ever day to advance America's national interest and global leadership."
Issa explained in his letter to Kerry why the committee needed the requested documents.
"The documents the enclosed subpoena covers will help the Committee understand why, although on the day after the attacks senior State Department leadership believed that Islamic extremists were involved, there were reservations about publicly acknowledging any such involvement just three days later," Issa wrote. "The issue is at the heart of the Committee's ongoing investigation."
Republicans have been arguing that the State Department and the White House covered up that the attack involved Islamic extremists because such news would be damaging to President Obama's reelection bid. Democrats have accused Republicans of unnecessarily politicizing the tragedy, according to CNN.
"This investigation had been politicized from the beginning as House Republicans accuse first and then scramble to find evidence to back their unsubstantiated claims," Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., told CNN.
The committee has given the State Department until June 7 to deliver the documents.
