The House Republican chairman investigating last year’s terror attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, has subpoenaed four State Department officials, saying the department was stalling on efforts to interview them.
In a statement Monday, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa of California said the four led offices where the State Department’s report into the attack, called an Accountability Review Board, had found that deficiencies contributed to a lack of security.
The board found that State Department leaders in Washington allowed the temporary facility in Benghazi to be occupied even though it did not meet security standards and then ignored pleas for additional security from diplomats on the ground.
The Board’s report identified four mid-level officials as failing to show leadership in the run up to the attacks.
Republicans have claimed that the report let senior officials, including then-Secretary of State Hilary R. Clinton, off the hook.
In a letter about the subpoenas to Secretary of State John F. Kerry released Monday, Mr. Issa detailed his efforts since April 29 to arrange interviews with the four officials and others, stating his investigators “have only been able to interview one of the 13 individuals with whom they requested interviews and the meeting was arranged without the State Department’s help.”
“These persistent delays create the appearance that the Department is dragging its feet to slow down the Committee’s investigation,” Mr. Issa wrote. “It does not require weeks of preparation to answer questions truthfully.”
He called the delay “irresponsible.”
Mr. Issa stated that the committee wants to hold a public hearing to examine the findings of the Accountability Review Board “as soon as possible.”
After issuing subpoenas last month, investigators arranged voluntary interviews with the co-chairs of the board — retired career diplomat Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, retired Adm. Michael Mullen.
Writing about Monday’s subpoenas, Mr. Issa said they were not the fault of the witnesses he was serving.
“By its very nature,” Mr. Issa wrote, “a subpoena can carry the implication that the witness is being uncooperative. In this case, that is an unfortunate and misleading consequence since it is the department, and not the individuals themselves, that appears to be dictating the timetable.”
The four officials, according to Mr. Issa, are Eric Boswell, who was assistant secretary at the Bureau of Diplomatic Security; Scott Bultrowicz, former principal deputy assistant secretary in that bureau and director of the Diplomatic Security Service; Elizabeth Dibble, former principal deputy assistant secretary, at the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs; and her boss, Elizabeth Jones, th bureau’s acting assistant secretary.

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