Hillary Clinton will appear before committee, but only once.

Lawyer says she’ll appear only once

Washington — Hillary Rodham Clinton’s lawyer said she will agree to appear once before a U.S. House committee investigating the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, instead of twice as the panel has requested.

Clinton, the secretary of state at the time of the attack and now a 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, “remains ready and willing to testify in public” before the Benghazi committee, her lawyer, David Kendall, said in a letter to the panel’s chairman dated Monday.

The House Select Committee on Benghazi is investigating the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks in Libya. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi and a nearby CIA outpost.

Republicans have tried for more than two years and through multiple investigations to prove that Clinton failed to bolster security before the assault and shared blame for the initial, erroneous account by Obama’s administration of what happened.

Clinton’s use of a private email address and home server while secretary of state has become a focus of the House committee, led by Representative Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).

The committee has asked Clinton to appear before it to discuss the emails during the week of May 18, and again to discuss the Benghazi attacks by June 18.

In the letter to Gowdy, Kendall said Clinton has previously testified for more than five hours before House and Senate committees about the Benghazi attack.

In appearing before Gowdy’s panel, “she will stay as long as necessary to answer the committee’s questions, but will not prolong the committee’s efforts further by appearing on two separate occasions when one will suffice,” Kendall wrote.

Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the Benghazi panel, said in a statement that the letter indicates Clinton’s willingness to testify and that “Chairman Gowdy should take yes for an answer and finally schedule the hearing.”

“After nearly a year, we have still found not a scrap of evidence to support claims Secretary Clinton ordered a stand-down, approved an illicit weapons program, or any of the other wild allegations that Republicans have been making about her for years,” Cummings said.