The State Department said Thursday it cannot locate 15 work-related emails from Hillary Clinton's private server released this week by the committee probing the 2012 Benghazi attacks -- indicating she never turned them over, in a revelation the committee chairman described as "significant and troubling." 
 
 The emails consist of more in a series of intelligence reports passed to her by longtime political confidant Sidney Blumenthal, officials told The Associated Press. 
 
 At the least, the existence of the emails turned over by Blumenthal but not by Clinton directly contradicts Clinton's news conference in March in which she claimed that all work emails from her personal server were turned over to the State Department. 
 
 The revelation will also raise further questions about the presidential hopeful’s use of a personal email account and server when she served as secretary of state, as well as the decision to wipe the server. 
 
 Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, called the revelations “significant and troubling.” 
 
 “This confirms doubts about the completeness of Clinton’s self-selected public record and raises serious questions about her decision to erase her personal server—especially before it could be analyzed by an independent, neutral third party arbiter,” Gowdy said. 
 
 When asked for comment by Fox News, a Clinton official said "not only did she turn over all emails that she had from Blumenthal, she actually turned over more than a dozen emails that were not included in what he handed over to the House committee. We do not have a record of other correspondence between her and Mr. Blumenthal beyond that which was turned over to the State Department.” 
 
 “In terms of the documents provided by Mr. Blumenthal to the House committee, we do not recognize many of those materials and cannot speak to their origin,” the official said. 
 
 Clinton's use of the non-governmental email while in office was not publicly disclosed until earlier this year, after the committee sought her correspondence related to the Benghazi attack. She says the single account for personal and professional purposes was a matter of convenience, and says all her work emails were included in the 55,000 pages of documents she later handed over to the State Department. Clinton claims that emails of a personal nature were destroyed. 
 
 The State Department informed the Select Benghazi Committee on Thursday that they are no longer certain that's the case, officials told The Associated Press. 
 
 The emails missing from the State Department's records include missives from Blumenthal in which he sends media accounts about the killing of one of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi's sons, various reports on internal politics among Libya's rebels and news of the assassination of a former Qaddafi minister in Vienna. 
 
 Gowdy told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly last week that Blumenthal was merely forwarding information from someone who may have had business interests in Libya. 
 
 Gowdy said that Blumenthal has never been to Libya, is not an expert on the country and therefore “has no idea” as to the validity of the information he was sending to Clinton. 
 
 “Not only was [Blumenthal] providing unvetted, uncorroborated, unsubstantiated intelligence to our top diplomat, he was just simply forwarding on intelligence that somebody by the name of Tyler Drumheller was sending him,” Gowdy said. 
 
 Clinton's responses to Blumenthal’s emails are brief. In one from March 2012, she passes on an adviser's skepticism regarding one of Blumenthal's reports about political intrigue in post-Qaddafi Libya, saying: "This strains credulity based on what I know. Any other info about it?" 
 
 And after a long August 2012 note from Blumenthal about Libya's new interim President Mohamed Yousef el-Magariaf, Clinton writes: "Another keeper -- thanks and please keep `em coming." Four days later, she responds to a follow-up reports about el-Magariaf, saying: "Fascinating. I had a very good call w him." 
 
 Gowdy said Thursday that the emails show Clinton "was soliciting and regularly corresponding with Sidney Blumenthal -- who was passing unvetted intelligence information about Libya from a source with a financial interest in the country. It just so happens these emails directly contradict her public statement that the messages from Blumenthal were unsolicited." 
 
 The Associated Press and Fox News' Ed Henry contributed to this report. 

 WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department cannot find in its records all or part of 15 work-related emails from Hillary Rodham Clinton's private server that were released this week by a House panel investigating the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, officials said Thursday. 
 
 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks during a campaign stop at Christ the King United Church of Christ, Tuesday, June 23, 2015, in Florissant, Mo. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson) (Associated Press) 
 
 The emails all predate the Sept. 11 assault on the U.S. diplomatic facility and include scant words written by Clinton herself, the officials said. They consist of more in a series of would-be intelligence reports passed to her by longtime political confidant Sidney Blumenthal, the officials said. 
 
 Nevertheless, the fact that the State Department says it can't find them among emails she provided surely will raise new questions about Clinton's use of a personal email account and server while secretary of state and whether she has provided the agency all of her work-related correspondence, as she claims. 
 
 Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, released a statement Thursday saying, "This confirms doubts about the completeness of Clinton's self-selected public record and raises serious questions about her decision to erase her personal server — especially before it could be analyzed by an independent, neutral third-party arbiter." 
 
 When asked about the discrepancy, Nick Merrill, a Clinton campaign spokesman, said, "She has turned over 55,000 pages of materials to the State Department, including all emails in her possession from Mr. Blumenthal." 
 
 Clinton is running for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. 
 
 Clinton's use of the non-governmental email while in office was not publicly disclosed until earlier this year, after the committee sought her correspondence related to the Benghazi attack. She says the single account for personal and professional purposes was a matter of convenience, and says all her work emails were included in the 55,000 pages of documents she later handed over to the State Department. Emails of a personal nature were destroyed, she says. 
 
 The State Department informed the Select Benghazi Committee on Thursday that they are no longer certain that's the case, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The officials said Julia Frifield, the assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, confirmed that nine emails and parts of six others that the committee made public Monday couldn't be located in the department's records. 
 
 As for 46 other, previously unreleased Libya-related Blumenthal emails published by the committee, officials said all are in the department's records. They weren't handed over to congressional investigators because they had no relevance to events in Benghazi and did not correspond to the committee's request, the officials said. The officials added that they are willing to provide emails outside the committee's initial request, but warned that doing so would require more time. 
 
 The emails missing from the State Department's records include missives from Blumenthal in which he sends media accounts about the killing of one of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi's sons, various reports on internal politics among Libya's rebels and news of the assassination of a former Gadhafi minister in Vienna. The last email was sent Aug. 28, 2012, two weeks before the Benghazi attack, and none focus particularly on the eastern Libyan city. 
 
 Clinton's responses are brief. In one from August 2011, she tells Blumenthal she will be in Paris the next day to meet rebel leaders and says she had "to resort to new iPad" because she didn't have electricity or Blackberry coverage after Hurricane Irene. 
 
 In another from March 2012, she passes on an adviser's skepticism regarding one of Blumenthal's reports about political intrigue in post-Gadhafi Libya, saying: "This strain credulity based on what I know. Any other info about it?" 
 
 And after a long August 2012 note from Blumenthal about Libya's new interim President Mohamed Yousef el-Magariaf, Clinton writes: "Another keeper — thanks and please keep 'em coming." Four days later, she responds to a follow-up reports about el-Magariaf, saying: "Fascinating. I had a very good call w him." 
 
 Clinton's critics are likely to focus less on the substance of the emails than on the fact that they weren't shared with the State Department. 
 
 Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, has pressed for an explanation of why Blumenthal gave the committee emails not previously shared by the State Department. The suggestion has been that either the department or Clinton was hiding something. 
 
 Gowdy said Thursday that the emails show Clinton "was soliciting and regularly corresponding with Sidney Blumenthal — who was passing unvetted intelligence information about Libya from a source with a financial interest in the country. It just so happens these emails directly contradict her public statement that the messages from Blumenthal were unsolicited." 
 
 Clinton aides say her submission to the department included all emails from Blumenthal and a dozen more exchanges that weren't in the records he provided the House committee. They said some from Blumenthal's record, which was provided as a Microsoft Word document, couldn't be confirmed as having been sent as emails. 
 
 State Department officials also questioned the provenance of some exchanges because they weren't formatted as emails. 
 
 ___ 
 
 This story corrects the breakdown of missing emails to nine full emails and parts of six others.
– The State Department is still poring over 55,000 pages of Hillary Clinton emails, but officials made an important announcement yesterday: She didn't turn over at least 15 work-related emails as requested, the New York Times reports. How the discovery was made: The House committee looking into the Benghazi debacle subpoenaed correspondence from longtime Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal, and the State Department cross-referenced the emails he handed over and the ones Clinton did. It found nine emails Blumenthal had were completely missing from her files, as well as parts of six others. Rep. Trey Gowdy, chair of the Benghazi committee, calls the findings "significant" and "troubling" and says that Blumenthal was passing along "unvetted, uncorroborated, unsubstantiated intelligence to our top diplomat" from a source who reportedly had a financial interest in Libya, reports Fox News. But Clinton aides say she handed over all Blumenthal emails, plus a dozen more that he didn't turn in—and that there's no proof the 15 messages in question were actually sent in the form of an email, as Blumenthal compiled the records he handed over into a Microsoft Word document, the AP reports. Officials say that while some are Libya-related, the Blumenthal messages to Clinton don't directly deal with the 2012 Benghazi attacks: Instead, they discuss topics such as media reports about the death of one of Moammar Gadhafi's sons and the inner workings of Libyan rebels. Gowdy isn’t convinced the messages are moot, however. "This has implications far beyond Libya, Benghazi, and our committee's work," he said in a statement, per CNN. "This conclusively shows her email arrangement with herself, which was then vetted by her own lawyers, has resulted in an incomplete public record."