Gowdy On What He Learned From Hillary Clinton's Benghazi Testimony | Meet The Press | NBC News

well when you say new today I mean we knew some of that already we knew about the emails in terms of her testimony I don't know that she testified that much differently today than she asked a previous time she's testified so I'd have to go back a little bit the transcript all right simple question you've looked at the transcript I imagine last 72 hours what have you come up with well I think there's there's some new information Chuck and some clarifying information in all three tranches of Benghazi if you look at the trunks that I think Secretary Clinton has the most information on it's that first tranche the before when she's asked whether she takes responsibility she says yes but when you ask responsibility for what I can't tell you what she's taking responsibility for and my main fear there is how are we better prepared to avoid the next Benghazi if we don't fully understand who made the errors and where the errors were made last time so with respect to responsibility with the placing of the mission with the request for more security you know I have a perspective which is rooted in the previous ARB that the Secretary of State himself or herself she'll do that personal review a her position is that there are people in processes in place and she relies on security experts we've got to get that reconciled because I think mr. Cummings and I both agree the penultimate objective is to avoid the next Benghazi let me ask you we did a little calculation here on the number of words that you use during the hearing you said the word Benghazi 17 times Blumenthal 35 times emails 76 times you had made a promise that you were keeping the focus on Benghazi you feel as if you did as much or you know even some Republicans were wondering why you were going down the Sidney Blumenthal what some called a rabbit hole well I don't think it's a rabbit hole Chuck and I'll tell you why I mean I I respect the fact that other people have different perspectives but to me those are not Sidney Blumenthal his emails they are secretary Clinton's emails to or from Sidney Blumenthal and every one of them relates to Libya and Benghazi so I'm not reading Blumenthal emails about bridesmaids dresses or wedding plans or yoga these are all about Libya and Benghazi in to the extent that he was one of the more prolific emailers to her on the subject matter how do you not ask how does this person who has no formal role in government and no expertise in Libya or Benghazi how does he have unfettered access to you but the Ambassador there is not a single email tour from him so I get that people want to refer to these as Sidney Blumenthal emails there Hillary Clinton emails that she received from him and frankly I think it'd be a dereliction of duty if you didn't ask about well nobody is questioning whether to ask about him I think it was the amount of time spent on it it seemed like a larger portion of time was spent on that for instance I didn't hear as many questions that I expected to hear on the Libya policy in general you know the vacuum that was left that ultimately created the security situation that we had in Benghazi that led to the death of four Americans I think Peter Roskam and Mike Pompeo both ask maybe all of their series of questions on the on the tick-tock memo and and and I remember Susan Brooks having a stack of emails in 2011 versus 2012 and 2011 there was a heightened interest in Libya and Benghazi in 2012 it appeared to dissipate at least according to the email so I mean Chuck as you know but when you go into hearings each of the seven members has his or her own own lane that's what they're gonna ask on and and I do think it is it is relevant on two different levels whether or not his emails were solicited or unsolicited you can certainly argue is irrelevant but but she said they were unsolicited and I do think credibility is always relevant if they were truly unsolicited then she wouldn't have changed her testimony on Thursday let me ask you this if you said this the other night on Fox with Greta Van Susteren you said part of what I saw yesterday Greta wasn't all that constructive and for the American people to just tune into a 9-hour food fight I would err on the side of a private one before I would do that it was in response to a question about future witnesses that you would bring on whether it would be on TV or not it sounds like you may regret how you win about in questioning Secretary Clinton that maybe you should have done some of it off-camera and only some of it on camera D do you want what do / do you want well Chuck it was a voluntary interview I didn't send the subpoenaed Secretary Clinton it was a voluntary interview and and she wanted it to be in public I wrote a letter several months ago giving her an option and she chose public and and that's well within her rights I can just tell you that of the 50 some-odd interviews we have done thus far the vast majority of them have been private and you don't see the bickering among the members of Congress and private interviews you don't see any of that so that is most could you say cable TV the TV camera adds adds to the grandstanding on both sides of the aisle what do you think Chuck how made you've been following Congress for a long time I can just tell you in the private interviews there is never any of what you saw Thursday it is one hour on the Republican side one hour on the Democrat side which is why you're going to see the next two dozen interviews done privately because it is I mean look at the other investigations that are being done right now that the Lois Lerner investigation that was just announced was that public or private how about commis investigation is that public or private the private ones always produce better results very quickly Secretary Clinton which she a cooperative witness she answered the questions and and I would note I don't think I ever caught her off she was given ample opportunity so she answered the questions yeah if that's your definition of cooperative yes that yours you know I've always also injected an element of wholeness and completeness and also truthfulness in the definition of cooperative and I'll give you one example I gave her an opportunity to tell me where the 90 to 95 percent figure comes from she's wrong about that so did she cooperate in answering the question yes was it an accurate answer no all right congressman Gowdy I will leave it there thing NBC News fans thanks for checking out our youtube channel subscribe by clicking on that button down here and then click on any of the videos over here to watch the latest interviews show highlights and digital exclusives thanks for watching

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Id: zKbNd8QJ3JQ

Length: 6min 43sec (403 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 26 2015