Oh, my. And according to ranking Oversight member Elijah Cummings, Hillary Clinton agreed to testify before the House Select Committee on Benghazi four months ago:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has agreed to testify before the House Select Committee investigating the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi,CNN reports.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the panel’s Democratic ranking member, told CNN Tuesday that Clinton had agreed to testify before the committee late last year.

“The chairman asked me back in September to inquire as to whether Secretary Clinton would testify,” Cummings said. “She immediately said she would and that she wanted to come in December, but if December did not work, she would come in January. She said, ‘I’ll do it, period.’ The fact is, she was very clear. She did not hesitate for one second.”

Fox News also picked up on the CNN report:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8jdtWABlWo

There’s a big difference, though, between being willing to testify … and actually showing up. Trey Gowdy offers up one hurdle for the appearance, which is that Gowdy wants a lot more documents from the State Department. The committee just got 15,000 pages of previously withheld documents, but Gowdy still hasn’t been told that they have all of Hillary’s e-mails. He wants a complete accounting of what State has — and what they no longer have, given the document-sifting session allegedly conducted by Cheryl Mills. Gowdy wants her on the stand, too, but also with all of the documents first.

Does Hillary really plan to make this kind of appearance in the middle of a campaign, though? That seems … rather doubtful. She may feel the need to clear the decks on Benghazi, but her answers probably won’t accomplish that. All it does is remind voters of the incompetence that led to the collapse of Libya and the refusal to secure the consulate, all of which happened on her watch at State, which is also her biggest argument for being qualified to become Commander in Chief. She’ll be putting her candidacy at the mercy of Trey Gowdy, a masterful cross-examiner who’s motivated to expose the myriad of failures in leadership that produced the deadly Benghazi debacle.  There’s no way that Congressional hearing ends happily for Hillary, so don’t hold your breath.