House Speaker John A. Boehner on Thursday demanded that Secretary of State John F. Kerry testify to Congress about why his department hid a key email that seems to show the White House tainted the talking points following the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack.
Mr. Boehner, in a statement, said “someone needs to answer” for the move, which kept the key document hidden for months. The House had issued a subpoena it felt should have included the records, but the State Department only produced after Judicial Watch, a public-interest watchdog, sued and got a court to order the document’s release.
“If the White House won’t explain it, Secretary Kerry should come to the Capitol to explain why he defied an official congressional subpoena. And the White House needs to understand that this investigation will not end until the entire truth is revealed and justice and accountability are served,” Mr. Boehner said.
Earlier in the day, at a hearing, Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said withholding the email from Congress was “possibly criminal.”
The email shows a top White House official shaping how then-U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice should talk about the attack ahead of a round of Sunday political talk shows the weekend after the attack. The email said blame should be placed on an anti-Islamic Internet video.
The White House said this week that the email was never turned over to Congress, despite a subpoena demanding the information, because it wasn’t about Benghazi. Instead, the email was “about the general situation in the Muslim world,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday.
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On Thursday Mr. Carney again deflected questions, saying the House is searching for an attack.
“This is a conspiracy theory in search of a conspiracy,” Mr. Carney said of the furor over the White House’s internal email.
A day after saying the email wasn’t responsive to Mr. Issa’s subpoena, Mr. Carney changed tactics and said it was a State Department decision and Mr. Kerry’s department would have to answer about its moves.
Four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, were killed in the attack on the American diplomatic post in Benghazi.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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