Raid still thorn for Clinton
HILLARY CLINTON has tried to close the book on the worst episode of her tenure as secretary of state, battling hours of Republican questions in a hearing that grew contentious but revealed little new about the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
She firmly defended her record while seeking to avoid any mishap that might damage her presidential campaign.
Democrats have accused the Republicans of using the investigation as a ploy to derail Clinton’s White House bid, noting it is the eighth congressional investigation into the attacks.
But the hearing came at a moment of political strength for Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.
Pressed about events before and after the deaths of four Americans, Clinton had confrontational exchanges with several Republican lawmakers but also fielded supportive queries from Democrats.
The committee’s chairman, Trey Gowdy, portrayed the panel as focused on the facts after comments by fellow Republicans describing it as an effort designed to hurt Clinton’s presidential bid.
Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, said the Republicans’ efforts were not a prosecution.
Contradicting him, Adam Smith, a Democrat from Washington, told Clinton: ‘‘The purpose of this committee is to prosecute you.’’
In one tense moment, Republican Jim Jordan accused Clinton of deliberately misleading the public by linking the Benghazi violence at first to an internet video insulting the Muslim Prophet Mohammed.
Eventually given the chance to comment, Clinton said only that ‘‘some’’ people had wanted to use the video to justify the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, and that she rejected that justification.
The argument reflected some of the raw emotion the deadly violence continues to provoke, something Clinton will have to face over the next year of her White House bid.
For Clinton, the political theatre offered opportunity and potential pitfalls.
It gave her a high-profile platform to show her self-control and command of foreign policy. But it also left her vulnerable to claims she helped politicise the Benghazi tragedy.
‘‘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’’ to the diplomats and others involved.