Benghazi envoy’s slay fear
WASHINGTON — Eighteen months before his murder in the 2012 Benghazi attack, US Ambassador Christopher Stevens was so worried about security in Libya that he was considering leaving the country, according to newly released Hillary Rodham Clinton emails.
An email sent to the thensecretary of state’s private account with “high” importance described the shelling and snipers surrounding Stevens, then serving as special envoy.
“The situation in [the Libyan town of] Ajdabiyah has worsened to the point where Stevens is considering departure from Benghazi,” said an April 10, 2011, email obtained Thursday by The New York Times.
Ultimately, Stevens stayed and became ambassador to Libya after the death of dictator Moammar Khadafy and was killed in an attack on the US Benghazi outpost.
The Times published about a third of the 850 pages of emails from Clinton’s private server that were turned over to a House committee investigating the Benghazi attack.
Some 25 Libya emails were sent by trusted Clinton friend and adviser Sidney Blumenthal, the Times said.
The memos were then circulated around the State Department.
Two days after the Benghazi attack, Blumenthal emailed Clinton an intelligence assessment, saying it “had been planned for approximately one month” and carried out by “welltrained, hardened killers.”
The emails leaked to the Times show Clinton was advised two days after the Benghazi attack that it was premeditated and not a spontaneous response to an antiMuslim video as the Obama administration had contended.