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VIDEO: Hillary Clinton Defends Her Legacy as Secretary of State at Benghazi Hearing
Hillary Clinton’s Congressional foes have been particularly determined in their efforts to make sure the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the American embassy in Benghazi, Libya remains an active issue—both for Clinton as she gains traction in her latest bid for the White House and for voters who might consider backing her.
On Thursday, Clinton settled in for hours of questions before the House Benghazi committee to defend her actions as secretary of state during the attack, in which four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, were killed and 10 others injured.
The Democratic presidential hopeful came prepared for Thursday’s session, setting the tone in her exchange with the panel’s GOP members by claiming responsibility for not just those members of the State Department lost in Libya but also elsewhere in the world during her watch:
As secretary of state, I had the honor to lead and the responsibility to support nearly 70,000 diplomats and development experts across the globe. Losing any one of them as we did in Iraq, Afghanistan, Mexico, Haiti, and Libya during my tenure was deeply painful for our entire State Department and USAID family and for me personally.
I was the one who asked Chris to be our envoy. I was the one who recommended him to be our ambassador to the president. After the attacks, I stood next to President Obama as Marines carried his casket and those of the other three Americans off the plane at Andrews Air Force Base. I took responsibility. And as part of that, before I left office, I launched reforms to better protect our people in the field and help reduce the chance of another tragedy happening in the future.
The New York Times summarized the earliest exchanges in the Benghazi hearing as follows:
Testifying in the ornate and cavernous assembly room that is home to the House Ways and Means Committee, Mrs. Clinton hailed the memory of J. Christopher Stevens, the ambassador to Libya, and the three others who died at the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi and again took responsibility for the attacks in which they died.
But the Democratic presidential candidate said that as secretary of state she had not personally approved or denied requests for extra security for the facility where they were based. And she insisted that the United States must not back away from diplomacy because of the incident.
“Retreat from the world is not an option,” Mrs. Clinton told lawmakers.
Mrs. Clinton’s comments followed an aggressive opening statement from Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, the chairman of the committee, who assailed the former secretary of state for having failed in her duty to safeguard American lives.
“Why were there so many requests for security equipment and personnel and why were those requests denied in Washington?” Mr. Gowdy demanded as Mrs. Clinton sat before the committee, staring with thinly veiled disgust. “What did our leaders in Washington do or not do, and when?”
The Times also noted that the issue of Clinton’s State Department emails also comprised one of the talking points on the menu for the hearing.
CNNgo is streaming coverage of the Benghazi panel throughout the day on Thursday here.
—Posted by Kasia Anderson
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Source: http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/hillary_clinton_clocks_in_for_long_day_of_benghazi_hearings_20151022/
