WASHINGTON — A House committee investigating the Benghazi, Libya, attacks was expected as early as Wednesday to subpoena the emails of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who used a private account exclusively for official business when she was secretary of state — and also used a computer email server now traced back to her family’s New York home.
The Republican-led Select Committee on Benghazi planned the subpoenas to demand additional material from Clinton, congressional aides told The Associated Press. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the committee’s actions.
The development on Capitol Hill came the same day AP reported the existence of a personal email server traced back to the Chappaqua, New York, home of Clinton. The unusual practice of a Cabinet-level official running her own email server would have given Clinton — who is expected to run for president in the 2016 campaign — significant control over limiting access to her message archives.
The practice also would complicate the State Department’s legal responsibilities in finding and turning over official emails in response to any investigations, lawsuits or public records requests. The department would be the position of accepting Clinton’s assurances she was surrendering everything required that was in her control.
Congress said it learned last summer about Clinton’s use of a private email account to conduct official State Department business during its investigation of the Benghazi attacks.