At Benghazi hearing, shouting match over Hillary Clinton’s emails

WASHINGTON: Republican lawmakers spent more than eight hours aggressively questioning Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday, seeking to build a case that the former secretary of state had been derelict in her duty to secure the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, in the months before the 2012 terrorist attacks that killed four Americans.

Billed by Republican leaders of the select House committee investigating the Benghazi attacks as a critical moment in its inquiry, the long-awaited appearance by Mrs Clinton, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, served largely as a replay of highly contested arguments from previous congressional hearings, press examinations and Sunday-morning talk shows.

"Why were there so many requests for security equipment and personnel, and why were those requests denied in Washington?" Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, the committee chairman, demanded to know as he opened the hearing on Thursday morning. "What did our leaders in Washington do or not do, and when?"

But the long day of often-testy exchanges between committee members and their prominent witness revealed little new information about an episode that has been the subject of seven previous investigations, and that Republicans have long seen as a blemish on Mrs Clinton's record that could be exploited as she sought the presidency.



Democratic presidential candidate and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton leaves after a hearing before the House select committee on Benghazi. (AFP photo)

Held in the ornate room that is home to the House Ways and Means Committee, the marathon hearing began at 10am and, with breaks, lasted until 9pm. It provided Republicans with a national audience as they questioned Mrs Clinton, often using her own words from thousands of pages of emails obtained by the committee. But it also gave Mrs Clinton her first opportunity since early 2013 to respond directly to her fiercest critics, and she used the platform to offer lengthy explanations of her diplomatic efforts around the world and her actions before and after the Benghazi attacks.

Perhaps stung by recent admissions that the pursuit of Mrs Clinton's emails was politically motivated, Republican lawmakers on the panel for the most part avoided any mention of her use of a private email server. Still, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio did raise the issue late in the hearing, accusing her of repeatedly changing her account of the server and why she had used it. In a heated exchange, Mrs Clinton repeated that she had made a mistake in using a private email account, but maintained that she had never sent or received anything marked classified and had sought to be transparent by publicly releasing her emails.

But committee Republicans focused mostly on accusations that Mrs Clinton had ignored security needs in Benghazi in the months before the attacks, a charge she repeatedly rejected.

Throughout the day, Democrats on the committee portrayed Republicans as the leaders of a partisan crusade against Mrs Clinton, while Republicans responded angrily that Democrats were seeking to block a legitimate inquiry into fatal security lapses at an American diplomatic outpost. Shortly before the committee broke for lunch, a shouting match erupted between Mr. Gowdy and two Democrats, Adam B. Schiff and Elijah E. Cummings, over the focus on Mrs Clinton's email exchanges with Sidney Blumenthal, a former aide to her husband and a friend.

Late in the evening, Mrs Clinton had a coughing fit that stopped testimony for two minutes. Hoarse and visibly tired, she responded testily to comments by Mr. Gowdy questioning the independence of a Benghazi review led by Thomas R Pickering, a retired diplomat, and Mike Mullen, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"I will not sit here and hear that," she snapped, accusing Mr Gowdy of impugning their reputations.



Democratic presidential candidate and former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton gets set to hug House select committee on Benghazi ranking member Elijah Cummings. (AFP photo)

But during most of her testimony, Mrs Clinton sought to project an image of composure and authority, challenging the committee in her opening statement to "reach for statesmanship" in its long-running inquiry. Alternately bemused and disdainful but never showing anger, Mrs Clinton recalled on several occasions the courage of J. Christopher Stevens, the ambassador to Libya, and the three others who died at the mission in Benghazi.

She again took responsibility for the attacks in which they died, but insisted that as secretary of state, she had never personally approved or denied requests for extra security for the facility where they were based. And she told lawmakers that the United States must not back away from assertive diplomacy because of the episode.

"Retreat from the world is not an option," Mrs Clinton told lawmakers. She called accusations that she had contributed to the death of Mr Stevens, a friend, "personally painful" and "deeply distressing."

Mrs Clinton added: "I've lost more sleep than all of you put together. I have been racking my brain about what more could have been done or should have been done."

Mrs Clinton at times chided the Republican-led committee for what she called a failure to pursue a bipartisan search for the truth. In her opening statement, and later in response to prodding by friendly Democratic lawmakers, she said investigations of past tragedies had been handled cooperatively by both parties.

"That's what happened during the Reagan administration, when Hezbollah attacked our embassy," Mrs Clinton said, citing similar bipartisanship in inquiries under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. "I would like us to get back to those times."

Democrats on the panel echoed that theme. Mr Schiff accused Republicans of pursuing a kind of prosecution against Mrs Clinton in an attempt to damage her presidential campaign.

"I think the core theory is this: that you deliberately interfered with security in Benghazi and that resulted in people dying," he told Mrs Clinton. "Notwithstanding how many investigations we've had that have found absolutely no merit to that, that is the impression they wish to give."

"This is not a prosecution, Mr. Schiff," Mr Gowdy responded.

In the course of the hearing, Republicans did reveal some new evidence of contradictions in Mrs Clinton's statements on Benghazi. Mr Jordan said a transcript they had obtained of a call she made to the Egyptian prime minister on the day of the attack showed she had given a different account of its causes than the one contained in a public statement an hour earlier. Mrs Clinton responded that the situation had been "fluid" and fast-moving, but she defended her comments.

The committee repeatedly cited Mrs Clinton's relationship with Mr. Blumenthal, who worked in the White House during Bill Clinton's presidency but had been barred by the Obama administration from working for Mrs Clinton at the State Department.

Well known in Washington but not a household name outside the Beltway, Mr Blumenthal in some ways became the surprise star of the lengthy hearing, his name popping up again and again.

In several instances, Republicans said Mrs Clinton had been preoccupied with reading homemade intelligence memos from Mr. Blumenthal instead of worrying about security at the outpost. The Republicans said that it made no sense that Mr Blumenthal had unfettered access to Mrs Clinton, yet Mr Stevens did not have her email address.

Republicans also suggested that Mrs Clinton had ignored requests by Americans in Benghazi for more security. Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas asked Mrs Clinton why she had not responded to more than 600 requests for security from State Department employees in Benghazi even though she often responded to Mr Blumenthal.

"The folks that worked for you didn't have the same courtesy," Mr Pompeo said.

Mrs Clinton responded that Mr Blumenthal was "a friend of mine," but that it had been proper to leave questions about the provision of security in Benghazi to the State Department officials who regularly handled security issues.

Mr Gowdy pressed Mrs Clinton on why requests to get supplies to Libyans made their way to her, yet emails requesting more security from Mr. Stevens never reached her inbox. Mrs Clinton repeatedly told Mr. Gowdy that Mr. Stevens had communicated with her staff, including a senior policy aide, Jake Sullivan, and security personnel in the State Department.

"He did not raise security with the members of my staff," she said. "He raised security with the security professionals."

She added: "I know that's not the answer you want to hear. But those are the facts."

"If he had raised it with me," she continued, "I would be here telling you he had."