House committee subpoenas Kerry over Benghazi documents

A key House committee has subpoenaed Secretary of State John Kerry to testify about newly released Benghazi documents, after the Republican chairman accused the administration of hiding the records following an earlier congressional subpoena.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee announced Friday that it has issued the subpoena for Kerry to testify at a May 21 hearing.

'The State Department's response to the congressional investigation of the Benghazi attack has shown a disturbing disregard for the Department's legal obligations to Congress,' Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., wrote in a letter to Kerry.

He added: 'Compliance with a subpoena for documents is not a game. Because your Department is failing to meet its legal obligations, I am issuing a new subpoena to compel you to appear before the Committee to answer questions about your agency's response to the congressional investigation of the Benghazi attack.'

Issa, at a hearing on Thursday, lashed out at the administration over the latest documents. The emails in question were obtained and published by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Issa said the State Department also told his committee about those emails in an April 17 letter.

One email showed White House adviser Ben Rhodes discussing a 'prep call' with then-U.N. ambassador Susan Rice, before she went on several Sunday shows and made controversial and flawed statements linking the attack to an anti-Islam Internet video. The email from Rhodes emphasized the role of the Internet video, though the White House claims that was in reference to protests elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa.

Regardless of the context, Issa claims those documents were withheld for Congress for well over a year. 'It is disturbing and perhaps criminal ... that documents like these were hidden by the Obama administration from Congress and the public alike,' Issa said at Thursday's hearing. He claimed the withholding of these documents is the worst transparency violation since at least the Nixon administration.

Before the subpoena was announced, House Speaker John Boehner also called on Kerry to testify before Congress in light of these revelations.