Members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi will hold a hearing next Wednesday to demand answers from the State Department on why it has withheld a series of documents from congressional investigators.

"The State Department has used every excuse to avoid complying with fundamental requests for documents," said Chairman Trey Gowdy Wednesday.

"Our Committee has tried asking personally. Our Committee has tried letter requests. Our Committee has tried public hearings with other agency employees. Our Committee has tried subpoenas," the South Carolina Republican said. "While the tactics tried have varied, the results have not."

Gowdy lamented the fact that the select committee was forced to delay three transcribed interviews earlier this month after the State Department repeatedly refused to hand over emails that lawmakers would need to read before they could conduct the interviews.

The select committee called Jon Finer, chief of staff to Secretary of State John Kerry, to appear at the hearing on July 29.

Gowdy said Finer had become the "point person" for the State Department's dealings with the select committee.

Finer asked for an earlier hearing, slated for July 8, to be postponed during the protracted negotiations in Vienna over the Iran nuclear deal, the chairman noted.

But given the committee's recent discovery that a Benghazi-related email chain had been withheld by the State Department, Gowdy said a hearing to examine the agency's frequent compliance failures was necessary.

"It has become apparent, since I last spoke with Mr. Finer, that emails directly related to the Committee's jurisdiction, in fact unarguably related the Committee's jurisdiction, have been withheld by the Department," Gowdy said.

The chairman said Finer could avoid testifying at the hearing by simply handing over the documents lawmakers had already requested.

Gowdy also noted that his committee would subpoena Finer if he fails to appear at the hearing next week.

The announcement came a week after committee Democrats released a previously unpublished hearing schedule they accused Gowdy of abandoning.

Republicans responded by pointing out the minority's seeming refusal to help the committee extract documents from the State Department.