Hillary slammed over claim in CNN interview she has ‘never had a subpoena’ on Benghazi – Congressman leading probe shows she DID

• Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House committee reviewing the assault on the U.S. consulate in Libya, released a copy of the subpoena dated March 4
• 'After Secretary Clinton falsely claimed the committee did not subpoena her, I have no choice in order to correct the inaccuracy,' he said
• Clinton made the claim during an interview on CNN taped on Tuesday
• Her spokesman told CNN afterward that she was not claiming she never received a subpoena for her emails at any time in the investigation
• She was stating, in response to the question, that she had not been ordered by a court to preserve her records at the time she deleted them
• 'The suggestion was made that a subpoena was pending at the time. That was not accurate,' he said

By Francesca Chambers, White House Correspondent For Dailymail.com In Miami, Florida

Published: 10:11 EST, 9 July 2015 | Updated: 10:58 EST, 9 July 2015

Hillary Clinton did receive a subpoena for her emails pertaining to Benghazi, says the lawmaker leading the congressional investigation into the assault, contrary to the former secretary of state's claim in a CNN interview that she did not.

Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House committee reviewing the September 11, 2012 assault on the U.S. consulate in Libya, yesterday released a copy of a subpoena, dated March 4 and addressed to Clinton, to back up his claim.

'The committee has issued several subpoenas, but I have not sought to make them public,' Gowdy said. 'I would not make this one public now, but after Secretary Clinton falsely claimed the committee did not subpoena her, I have no choice in order to correct the inaccuracy.' 

Hillary Clinton on Tuesday defended her discretionary use of a personal email address and private server to conduct State Department business, saying there were no rules or regulations barring her from doing so

When CNN's Brianna Keilar pointed out that none of Clinton's predecessors received a subpoena for their emails, the former secretary of state belligerently told her, 'You know, you're starting with so many assumptions, I never had a subpoena....again, let's take a deep breath here'

Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House committee reviewing the September 11, 2012 assault on the U.S. consulate in Libya, yesterday released a copy of a subpoena dated March 4 and addressed to Clinton

Gowdy said his committee 'immediately subpoenaed Clinton' after it found out about her email arrangement 'and would have done so earlier if the State Department or Clinton had been forthcoming that State did not maintain custody of her records and only Secretary Clinton herself had her records when Congress first requested them.'

Clinton on Tuesday defended her discretionary use of a personal email address and private server to conduct State Department business, saying there were no rules or regulations barring her from doing so. 

'Everything I did was permitted,' the Democratic presidential candidate stated, and she defiantly told her interviewer, CNN's Brianna Keilar, that she had no legal obligation to provide the federal government with copies of her online communications and had therefore done nothing wrong in wiping her server, as well.

She contended: 'I didn't have to turn over anything. I chose to turn over 55,000 pages because I wanted to go above and beyond what's expected of me.'

The former secretary of state maintained that she had acted in accordance with not only the law, but the past practices of her predecessors, none of whom were scrutinized over their email practices as heavily as she has been.

When Keilar tried to interject, telling her that none of them had received a subpoena for their emails, Clinton belligerently told her, 'You know, you're starting with so many assumptions, I never had a subpoena....again, let's take a deep breath here.'

Gowdy blasted Clinton in a statement later that night, saying she 'had a statutory duty to preserve records from her time in office' and 'a legal duty to cooperate and tell the truth with congressional investigators requesting her records.'

He further said 'she was personally subpoenaed the moment the Benghazi Committee became aware of her exclusive use of personal email and a server, and that the State department was not the custodian of her official record.'   

Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill told CNN on Wednesday that Clinton was not claiming to have never received a subpoena for her emails at any time in the investigative process. She was factually stating, in response to the question she was asked, he said, that she had not been ordered by a court to preserve her records at the time she deleted them.

'The suggestion was made that a subpoena was pending at the time. That was not accurate,' he said.

'The committee has issued several subpoenas, but I have not sought to make them public,' Gowdy said. 'I would not make this one public now, but after Secretary Clinton falsely claimed the committee did not subpoena her, I have no choice in order to correct the inaccuracy'

'In fact, Trey Gowdy did not issue a subpoena until March, months after she she'd done that review,' Merrill said. 'Further, the subpoena was specifically asking for documents pertaining to Libya and the attacks on our facility in Benghazi, documents which, along with tens of thousands of others, she had already given to the Department of State.'

Gowdy said Wednesday in a follow-up statement that accompanied his release of the subpoena that 'the timing of the Secretary's decision to delete and attempt to permanently destroy emails is curious at best' given that she knew she was under investigation and had left office more than a year before.

'By her own admission she did not delete or destroy emails until the fall of 2014, well after this Committee had been actively engaged in securing her emails from the Department of State,' he said.For 20 months, it was not too burdensome or cumbersome for the Secretary to house records on her personal server but mysteriously in the fall of 2014 she decided to delete and attempt to permanently destroy those same records.'

The White House and State Department has repeatedly said that it was up to Clinton and her team of personal assistants to determine which messages she sent and received were a matter of public record. 

Those messages were turned over to the federal government, and the other messages, marked personal by Clinton and her staff, were deleted and her server was wiped clean.

Clinton says that the bulk of the emails that pertained to her work at State were sent to other Obama administration employees, whose every key stroke has been logged on federal servers. 

A review of her longtime associate Sidney Blumenthal's messages show that Clinton did not share numerous conversations they had over email with her former employer. 

Blumnethal was not an employee of State - having been blacklisted from working in Barack Obama's administration for behavior in the Democratic Primary that White House aides said went too far - and his emails to Clinton may never have been known had it not been for a hacker who released a dossier of his emails two years ago.

He often sent Clinton memos about the worsening security situation in Libya, obtained from sources on the ground, and news clippings he thought she should read.

Clinton, who is pictured here on Tuesday in Iowa City, the same day as the CNN interview, denies that she did anything wrong. 'Everything I did was permitted,' she said

That Clinton did not include a handful of emails to and from Blumenthal in her document dump has Republicans worried that other, more enlightening messages, were left out, as well.

'The committee does not know why or when she chose to wipe clean her personal server, but we do know her way of doing things provided an incomplete public record,' Gowdy said this week.

A Super PAC supporting Clinton whose mission is to 'Correct the Record' when she is attacked in the press, subsequently accused Gowdy of misstating the facts as they pertained to the disclosure of her email.

Her personal email address 'was publicly disclosed two years ago and Gowdy is misleading the media about how he obtained this email address to lend legitimacy to this discredited investigation,' Correct the Record President Brad Woodhouse said. 

'If one thing is certain, it is Gowdy’s consistent inconsistencies with the rules of his attempted defamation of the Secretary of State,' he said in a statement. 'That Gowdy issued a response to a campaign interview by Secretary Clinton proves his intention to politicize what he claims is a non-partisan investigation. 

He added, 'It’s shameful that Gowdy intends to continue to politicize the tragic deaths of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty in an effort to score partisan points before the 2016 election.' 

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