The chairman of the House committee that is probing the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi said on Friday that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton permanently deleted all emails from her server.

Republican South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, pinpointed Oct. 28, 2014 as the date when Clinton decided to erase the emails. This was the date that the State Department asked its former head to return her public record to the department.

Like Us on Facebook

David Kendall, lawyer for Clinton, told the committee that 900 pages of email it had provided the panel complies with its subpoena order for the former secretary to submit to it all documents related to the Benghazi attack in 2012.

Gowdy said given Clinton's response to the subpoena, he and House Speaker John Boehner are considering new legal action against her because she failed to provide a single new document to the subpoena. She also turned down an order from the department's Inspector General to provide them her private server.

In rejecting the turnover of the server, Clinton said that the emails the department is seeking have been deleted from the private server in her New York residence on advice of her lawyer after they reviewed the server for any work-related correspondence.

Kendall pointed out the lack of basis to support the proposed third-party review of Clinton's server that hosted hdr22@clintonemail.com based on confirmation from her IT support that for the period Jan. 21, 2009 through Feb. 1, 2013, there are no emails on the server or its back-up systems.

Gowdy accused Clinton of acting as the sole arbiter of what is public or private record by summarily deleting all emails from her server to ensure no one else could check her analysis in the public interest.

Kendall believes the scrutiny on Clinton's email is linked to the 2016 election since she is believed to be a strong contender for the Democratic primaries. Surveys also indicate the email scandal has not dented Clinton's popularity, while aspiring Republican candidates are performing poorly at pre-election polls.

TagsHillary Clinton, emailgate, Benghazi, U.S. State Department, Rep. Trey Gowdy