Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put politics above truth and the safety of besieged U.S. personnel in Benghazi, Libya, according to a Republican Congressman.
Representative Jim Jordan says Libya was supposed to be the showcase, the “crown jewel,” for the Clinton policy in the Middle East. It centered on the Arab Spring, Libyan strongman Muammar Gadaffi being ousted with no boots on the ground, and the launching of a transformative era of freedom taking hold among formerly repressive regimes. Then on Sept. 11, 2012, it went all wrong at the small, poorly defended U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi. In a new 48-page addendum to the original report, Jordan says the attack and subsequent deaths of four US. personnel, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, threatened to make that policy look misguided and inept, so President Obama and Clinton went into spin mode, publicly saying that the attack as a spontaneous, violent protest sparked by an inflammatory video posted on the internet.
“She starts referencing the video even before the attack was over,” Jordan explains. “And we know that was misleading because later that night, about an hour later, she sends an email to her daughter and she says terrorists killed two of our people. And probably most telling is what she said the next day, telling the Egyptian Prime Minister, where she said privately again, we know the film had nothing to do with it. It was a planned attack, not a protest.”
Jordan says it was Secretary Clinton who first politicized the story, not the Republicans in their subsequent congressional hearings.
“They were being political at 10:08 the night of the attack.”
Representative Jordan was a guest on 790 KABC’s McIntyre in the Morning with Doug McIntyre and Terri-rae Elmer.
By Sandy Wells
KABC News
