Hillary Clinton’s Email to Chelsea Stars in Benghazi Hearing
4:33 pm ET Oct 22, 2015
By PETER NICHOLAS
blogs.wsj.com
Republicans released a new email at the Benghazi hearing written by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to her daughter Chelsea Clinton late on the night of the attacks in Benghazi.
In the email, Mrs. Clinton tells her daughter — who used the email pseudonym “Diane Reynolds” — that the attacks were undertaken by an “Al Queda-like group.”
Republicans seized on the mother-daughter exchange as proof that Mrs. Clinton misled the American people, failing to make clear that the attacks were actually a premeditated act of terrorism.
The private email to Chelsea Clinton, U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) said, was at odds with the message in the official statement put out by the State Department that same night under Mrs. Clinton’s name. In that statement, Mrs. Clinton made reference to an anti-Islam video that had sparked violent protests elsewhere in the region.
The email from Hillary Clinton
“Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet,” Mrs. Clinton’s 2012 statement said.
Mr. Jordan said: “You tell the American people one thing, you tell your family an entirely different story.”
He also said that suggesting the video gave rise to the Benghazi attack was “a false narrative” that “started with you, Madame Secretary.”
Republicans believe the Obama administration, worried about winning re-election in 2012, was eager to promote the idea that the attacks were a spontaneous demonstration over an offensive video — not a breakdown in the U.S. fight against terrorism.
Soon after the Benghazi attack, Susan Rice, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, reiterated on Sunday talk shows that the episode came amid protests over the video.
Mr. Jordan said “a campaign theme that year was …. Bin Laden’s dead, al-Qaeda’s on the run. And now you have a terrorist attack … and it’s just 56 days before an election. You can live with a protest about a video. That won’t hurt you. But a terrorist attack will.”
In reply, Mrs. Clinton said was careful in how the State Department statement was worded, emphasizing that it made clear how “some” have sought to justify the attacks as a response to the offensive video. She also said she wanted the statement to send a broader message to the region, noting, “I needed to be talking about the video, because I needed to put other governments and other people on notice that we were not going to let them get away with attacking us … .” |
