A calm and collected Clinton.
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“Chris Stevens had an opportunity to reach me anytime he thought there was something of importance”, she said, adding that Stevens and his team in Benghazi “very well understood the dangers that they were confronting”. Christopher Stevens “personally painful” and “deeply distressing”.
“There’s no question there’s a lot of momentum right now”, her spokesman Brian Fallon told reporters in Alexandria, Virginia as crowds gathered for Clinton.
And, unlike the scenes we are accustomed to seeing, with the witness being accompanied by a lawyer or a group of obsequious staff members, Clinton chose to make a solo appearance. “He was told no by your State Department”.
CLINTON: “I did not email during the day and – except on rare occasions when I was able to”. “Haven’t we seen enough of that yet?” she said. But Elijah Cummings, the senior Democrat on the Committee, was having none of it. Republicans “are wasting millions of taxpayers’ dollars in an attempt to derail Mrs Clinton’s presidential campaign”, he declared in his opening statement. But they did manage to push the portion about Clinton’s private server into prime-time television. “Because of the hearing, a new Twitter hastage has popped up: “#FreeHillary.” A better way to put it would be that at the time, it wasn’t explicitly prohibited because it wasn’t contemplated in the rules that federal officials would do all their emailing about public business outside official email channels.
Did Clinton speak with Stevens in the months before he died?
In several instances, Republicans said that she was preoccupied with reading homemade intelligence memos from Blumenthal instead of worrying about the security at the outpost. His latest target was the most recent round of congressional hearings on the 2012 attacks in Libya, which Hillary Clinton has been grilled about for years. You read them. You corresponded with him. Yahoo then asked Clinton whether her yoga routine helped her survive the testimony. “Yes or no please”. “Hillary Clinton should - and I believe will - be that president”.
CLINTON: “There was a good back and forth about security”. This is a contrast to her 2013 Senate testimony where she lost her temper and asked “what difference does it make?”
Her voice was calm.
But the questioners didn’t seem as interested in what the diplomatic facility was actually doing. “We don’t have the universe, yet, of Ambassador Stevens’ emails”.
The answer wasn’t satisfactory to Brooks. “He was told no by your State Department”.
The panel’s chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, said the committee was focused on facts, not politics.
While the hearing did not reveal any new salient information about the attack, it likely provided ammo for both Republicans and Democrats with strong opinions about Hillary’s role. Gowdy clarified, asking, “So he was working for The Clinton Foundation?”
On Friday, Republicans applauded Gowdy’s performance.
Gowdy was unable to say what was different between Thursday’s event and the last time she testified.
Clinton’s humor was not appreciated by Rep. Martha Roby (R.-Ala.) when she asked twice if Clinton was home alone all night, the night of the attack; Roby was nearly enraged when she shot out: “I don’t know why that’s amusing!”
The biggest player in Thursday’s hearing might not have been in the room at all.
The committee has already interviewed Blumenthal.
‘So I’m not in any way excusing them, ‘ she said.
Democrats on the panel echoed that theme.
Yet Trump remains atop most Republican polls.
Clinton had more friends in the audience.
Clinton refused to get riled. She testified that security requests were handled by experts further down the line and noted she had more than 200 ambassadors in her charge.
Others pressed the same issue.
“It started with you, Madam Secretary”, he said.
The five committee Democrats made the announcement after a meeting Friday with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who had said earlier Friday that Democrats could halt their participation in the committee. That limits their ability to press Clinton on records obtained otherwise.
What about Thursday’s marathon hearing will give the GOP new ammunition in the fight against Clinton and her performance on Benghazi?
“We’ve shown she weathers storms”. “You could live with a protest about a video, that won’t hurt you, but a terror attack would”. And why did the administration change its story about the nature of the attacks in the weeks afterward? But a terrorist attack will. So you can’t be square with the American people.
State Department spokespeople receive guidance every day from ambassadors, assistant secretaries and other top officials about their areas of expertise, so that they can most accurately present USA policy to the public.
Speaking directly to Mr Jordan, she said: “The insinuations that you are making do a great disservice” to the diplomats and others involved.
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Clinton rejected Jordan’s claim, describing the situation in the hours after the attack as “fluid” and the details unclear.
