Former secretary of state and current Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton testified for more than 11 hours on Thursday before the House Select Committee on Benghazi about how she handled the security situation leading up to the 2012 terrorist attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. A few damning revelations emerged and partisan bickering often erupted, though in the end, no career-ending smoking gun seems to have been found.
During the hearing, Republicans, led by chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, accused Clinton of engineering the U.S. intervention in Libya in order to boost her political reputation and then failing to ensure her diplomats had the necessary security to protect themselves against an attack.
Throughout the ordeal, Clinton did surprisingly well at keeping her composure in check, avoiding the bouts of anger she displayed during her 2013 testimony to Congress about the attacks, though she did appear to grow more impatient towards the end of the hearing, notes USA Today.
Republican members of the committee criticized Clinton for failing to provide adequate protection to Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was stationed at the Benghazi compound and had sent about 20 requests for additional security in the months before he and three other Americans died in the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack. His requests never reached Clinton and were largely ignored by Clinton's State Department, which at one point even decreased security.
Clinton responded to the criticism by claiming that some of Stevens' requests for additional security were fulfilled, such as fortifying the compound's walls, and insisted that Stevens "never once said to the State Department, 'We can't keep doing this, we can't stay there.'"
Clinton took responsibility for deploying Stevens to Libya and encouraging President Obama to launch a military assault to oust Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, but deflected responsibility for much of what went wrong, saying that Stevens' requests for additional protection were handled by lower-level security experts.
Republicans also questioned why Sidney Blumenthal, a long-time Clinton family friend and adviser, had access to Clinton's personal email address, but Stevens, who was in dire need of Clinton's help, did not have such access.
"Help us understand how Sidney Blumenthal had that kind of access to you, madam secretary, but the ambassador did not," said Gowdy.
One of the most dramatic moments came when Clinton acknowledged that she couldn't recall having talked to Stevens after swearing him in as ambassador, though she said she thought they might have spoken.
Republican Rep. Peter Roskam of Illinois accused Clinton of ignoring Stevens' requests because it would have required her to admit that the situation in Libya was deteriorating after she made a strong push to intervene in the first place.
At one point, Rep. Susan Brooks, R-Ind., attempted to demonstrate that Clinton had lost interest in protecting Americans in Libya after Gadhafi was ousted. She produced two piles of emails, one containing all emails that Clinton sent or received about Libya in 2011, about 795 emails, including "daily updates, sometimes hourly updates" from her staff about Benghazi and the ambassador. The second pile contained emails Clinton sent or received about Libya from early 2012 until the deadly September attack, only about 67 emails. The second pile covered the time frame that Stevens had pleaded with Clinton's State Department for increased security out of fear of an attack.
Brooks said she was troubled by how few emails Clinton sent about Libya at such a dangerous time. "We know from talking to your senior advisers that they knew to send you important information."
"I can only conclude by your own records that there was a lack of interest in Libya in 2012," Brooks added.
In one slightly awkward moment about the ambassador's security requests, Clinton suggested to Brooks that she thought Stevens must have been joking when he sent a 2011 request about security at the compound before he was deployed there, as Mediaite reported.
"Well, Congresswoman, one of the great attributes that Chris Stevens had was a really good sense of humor," Clinton said smiling. "And I just see him smiling as he's typing this, because it is clearly in response to the email down below talking about picking up a few 'fire sale' items from the Brits."
In another exchange with Brooks, Clinton admitted to breaking the law by not signing a waiver for security arrangements on the compound, as required by the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act of 1999 (SECCA), 22 USC § 4865 2(B)(ii), according to Breitbart.
Despite Clinton claiming she did "everything" possible to help after the attack had begun, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., forced Clinton to admit that she decided against sending the Foreign Emergency Support team to rescue the Americans in Benghazi.
In Clinton's most emotional testimony, she argued that she agonized over the deaths of the four Americans more than any other lawmaker on the panel.
"I would imagine I have thought more about what happened than all of you put together," she said, reported CNN. "I have lost more sleep than all of you put together. I have been wracking my brain about what more could have been done or should have been done."
One of the biggest bombshell revelations came from Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who introduced emails showing that Clinton lied to the American people the night of the attacks. That night, Clinton told family, the Egyptian prime minister, and the Libyan government that the Benghazi attack was a terrorist act, however that same night, Clinton told the American public that the attack was the result of spontaneous protests sparked by an anti-Muslim video.
Jordan noted that there was no evidence of a spontaneous protest in Benghazi and accused Clinton of crafting the false narrative in order to help President Obama win reelection in 2012.
While the issue was largely ignored during the majority of the hearing, towards the end, Republicans shifted focus to Clinton's use of a private email server during her tenure as the nation's top diplomat.
Jordan accused Clinton of hiding documents, asking, "How can we accept the statement that you've turned over all your work-related emails and emails about Libya?"
Clinton said again that she takes responsibility for her use of a personal email and admitted it was not a good choice, but offered no clear explanation for why she installed the server in the first place. "E-mail was not my primary means of communication, as I have said earlier," she said, reported The Washington Times.
She also revealed that she ordered her lawyers and aides to go through her emails, but did not "look over their shoulder" and didn't know the exact process they used to decide which emails were work-related and which should be deleted. She also declined to agree to released any of the emails recovered from the server.
The hearing often turned into a tussle between Republican committee members, who believe there are still serious questions remaining about Benghazi, and Democrats, many of whom argued that the committee was unnecessary and an attempt to harm Clinton's presidential ambitions. Some on the left even took time to offer lengthy apologies to Clinton towards the end of the hearing, while Gowdy defended himself and his committee.
Despite all the testy exchanges and accusations, much of the information discussed already came to light in the previous seven investigations into Benghazi, and Clinton appears to have escaped without any serious harm to her presidential campaign, according to The New York Times.
