Clinton stands ground on Benghazi
Former secretary of state cites ‘number’ of motivations behind attack
WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton firmly defended her actions on Benghazi as she came face-toface Thursday with the Republican-led special investigation of the 2012 attacks on a U.S. diplomatic mission in the Libyan city, hoping to put to rest the worst episode of her tenure as secretary of state and clear an obstacle to her presidential campaign.
Democrats have assailed the investigation as a ploy to derail Clinton’s White House bid, noting that it is the eighth congressional investigation into the attacks.
The hearing comes at a moment of political strength for Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. On Wednesday, a potential rival for the nomination, U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, announced he would not join the race. Clinton is also riding the momentum of a solid debate performance last week.
Contentious moments during the hearing included questions and accusations about the Obama administration’s shifting early public account of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks, which killed four Americans, including the first ambassador to Libya in more than three decades.
Republicans pressed for answers on her record in the lead-up to the attacks on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi and a nearby CIA compound, and how engaged she was on the deteriorating security situation in eastern Libya. The atmosphere remained mostly civil until a fiery back-and-forth with Rep. Jim Jordan, who accused Clinton of deliberately misleading the public by linking the violence to an Internet video insulting the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.
Clinton said only that “some” people had wanted to justify
The insinuations that you are making do a great disservice.
the attack based on that video and that she rejected that justification. The argument went to the origins of the disagreement over Benghazi and how President Barack Obama and his top aides represented the attack in the final weeks of his re-election campaign.
“There were probably a number of different motivations” for the attack, Clinton said, describing a time when competing strands of intelligence were being received and no clear picture had yet emerged. Speaking directly to Jordan, she said: “The insinuations that you are making do a great disservice.”
Beyond that exchange, there were no gaffes for Clinton and few contentious exchanges. She never raised her voice as she did at a Senate hearing on Benghazi in January 2013.
Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina started the hearing with a series of questions that he said remained unanswered: Why was the U.S. in Libya, why were security requests denied, why was the military not ready to respond quickly on the 11th anniversary of 9/11 and why did the Obama administration change its story about the nature of the attacks in the weeks afterward?
She stressed a need for diplomats to advance U.S. interests in the world, even in dangerous places, and said perfect security can never be achieved.
The U.S. military campaign against Moammar Gadhafi in 2011 helped prevent “genocide,” Clinton asserted, noting the Libyan dictator’s threat to hunt down opponents like “cockroaches.” The American-led intervention came after requests for assistance from allies in Europe and the Arab world, and extensive study and discussion by the U.S. government, she said.
The Republican criticism has included contentions by some lawmakers that Clinton personally denied security requests and ordered the U.S. military to “stand down” during the attacks, or that her agency was engaged in an elaborate gun-running scheme in eastern Libya. None of these were substantiated in an independent study ordered by Clinton after the deadly incident, and seven subsequent congressional investigations.
The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, described the entire probe as a partisan campaign replete with implausible conspiracy theories.
HILLARY CLINTON SPEAKING TO REP. JIM JORDAN AT A SPECIAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE 2012 ATTACKS IN BENGHAZI, LIBYA