WASHINGTON (AP) — A House panel that will be holding a hearing on Benghazi says it hasn’t heard anything from Secretary of State John Kerry about being unavailable to testify.
He’d been subpoenaed to attend the hearing later this month — but the State Department now says he’ll be on a two-day trip to Mexico then.
Kerry said yesterday he would comply with “whatever responsibilities” he has to Congress.
The ongoing probe by the House Oversight Committee is separate from an investigation that House Republicans are planning with a special panel. A vote to establish that probe is expected tomorrow. Democrats and Republicans have been sparring over the composition of that committee, and its operating rules.
Today, House Speaker John Boehner (BAY’-nur) vowed that the examination would be “all about getting to the truth” of the Obama administration’s response to the attack in Libya in September of 2012 in which the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed. Boehner says the probe won’t be a partisan, election-year circus — which is what many Democrats fear it will be.
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150-a-14-(House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, at news conference)-“system of government”-House Speaker John Boehner says this is a “serious investigation” — not a political “sideshow.” (7 May 2014)
< 149-a-08-(House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, at news conference)-“a serious investigation”-House Speaker John Boehner says his naming of a select committee to investigate the 2012 Benghazi U.S. mission attack is a bid to find out what really happened. (7 May 2014) < APPHOTO DCSA103: Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, and GOP leaders talk to reporters following a Republican strategy meeting at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 7, 2014. Boehner has created a special select committee investigating the attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the ambassador and three other Americans. Benghazi resonates with Republicans and remains a rallying cry with conservatives whose votes are crucial to the GOP in November’s historically low-turnout midterm elections. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (7 May 2014) < Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.