Hillary's Benghazi

 By Florida Bill

                         Even the most fierce and scrutinizing critic of Hillary Clinton will have to admit that the former Secretary of State stood up to the task of defending herself in connection with the 2012 attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi.  Her armor has no dents; at most, a scratch or two.                               
                         With the pressure-filled hearing behind her, she remains on track to win her party's nomination for next year's election.  Joe Biden won't be around to heckle her and Bernie Sanders' dream of an America modeled after Denmark isn't catching on.  The "block of granite" Lincoln Chafee has pulled out already, and Martin O'Malley is still apologizing for having said that "all lives matter." Jim Webb, the former senator who tried to talk sense about this nation's problems, has been ignored and has quietly withdrawn.  Clinton will have to commit an egregious gaffe to keep her from the nomination.
                        She wore her customary, smugly confidant visage during the 11-hour examination of her behavior and whereabouts during and after the attack on the consulate outpost in Libya by radicals who killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.  "Chris was my friend," said the former Secretary of State while testifying before the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Despite that friendly relationship, she apparently blocked any email communications with him, which required Stevens to deal with Clinton only through her aides.  To Chairman Trey Gowdy, that explanation was only a "C" minus.  From there, the conversation moved to the emails.
                        Chairman Gowdy noted that while Clinton did not accept direct emails from Ambassador Stevens, she sent and received hundreds of emails from Sidney Blumenthal, whom she also described as a friend, but hastened to emphasize "he is not my adviser."  Blumenthal passed extensive information directly to Clinton and she normally responded personally and promptly to him.  Clinton told the committee investigating the Benghazi attack that Blumenthal, who does work for the Clinton Foundation,  passed on information about Libya to her and some of it was good and and some of it wasn't.  Some she took and considered and some she tossed out, she said.  Blumenthal is a well-known political figure who has been an aide and confidant to President Clinton for years.  When it was suggested by committee members that it was unusual for Stevens to stand in line behind  Blumenthal, Clinton snapped that the ambassador knew how to contact her when he had any "grave concerns."
                         Her sworn testimony before the committee could have doomed her, but she skated through it maintaining her poise, unlike other forums where she bristled at tough questions.  Her Democratic backstops on the committee were principally Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, and Rep. Adam Schiff  of California.  Both vigorously defended her as a great lady, and they castigated the committee and its chairman as Republicans who have lowered their guns on Clinton in an effort to disrupt her as the leading  presidential candidate.  Clinton smiled in satisfaction as Cummings and Schiff came to her defense.
                         There is no doubt that following the attack and murder of the ambassador, Clinton attempted to downplay its significance. In public comments, some of them made while standing alongside President Obama, she endorsed for public consumption the untruth that the siege and murder were the spontaneous outburst of religious fervor by Muslims arising from a video on the Internet which made fun of the Prophet Muhammad.  By her testimony, and with her contradictions and different explanations to different people, it was clear that she was fudging about what had actually occurred there.   It is obvious to anyone with half of a brain that Clinton offered the  "video"  explanation in order to show that terrorism under her boss President Obama was decreasing, critics observed.  A planned attack would have contradicted Democratic talking points, which President Obama was using in his reelection boasts, and faithful Democrat Clinton was not about to upset that scenario.
                           Clinton lied about the video as being the basis of the attack, and that was pretty clear.  But her supporters don't really care.  She stuck to her explanations that there was confusion in determining the precise cause of the attack on the embassy.  In a previous appearance before a committee several years ago, a less poised Clinton raised both arms in a response concerning the deaths of the four Americans and screamed, "What difference does it make," referring to the motives.
                           Throughout the hearing Clinton, at all opportune moments, charged that the entire investigation of the Benghazi matter was a political attack designed by Republicans to discredit her.  These were remarks she has been making for months.  In response to a number of questions, she spoke of "not being informed of that," or "it was not my obligation." And where she could, she repeated as she had at the recent Democratic debate, that the Benghazi matter was a fishing expedition and that the Congressional committee was an arm of the Republican party.
                            But the House of Representatives, which appointed the special Benghazi committee, had solid reason for doing so.  Requests for documents concerning the incident were being withheld from it and in fact some documents were received by the committee just 48 hours prior to the hearing.  Other investigations of the Benghazi attack and the reasons behind it had been the subject of several other investigations, but those inquiries were thin and produced insufficient information.
                            The principle investigation prior to the House committee hearing had been carried out by an Accountability Review Board (ARB) with four of its five members appointed by Secretary of State Clinton, and headed by Democratic stalwarts Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering and  Adm. Michael Mullen.  House members have considered the ARB report as deficient since the pro-Clinton board never deposed Clinton, who had the responsibility for the operation of  the consulate in Libya.  Republican committee members also complained the the ARB failed to examine other important witnesses or to review the hundreds of emails drafted by Clinton and Stevens and others which pertained to the consulate in Libya.  The Secretary of State oversees the operation of all 270 of America's consulates throughout the world.
                              Clinton as well as the ARB have agreed that security at the Libyan compound was insufficient.  In emails and in other writings, Stevens complained of a need for increased security on the compound.  Clinton told the committee that security requests never reached her and unless  brought to her attention were handled by "security experts" in the State Department. She acknowledged that there was much turmoil and danger in Libya following the death of Momar Qadhafi.
                           Chairman Gowdy said that the committee will examine some 20 more witnesses before it can conclude its investigation. Nonetheless, after Clinton's televised testimony, it will take a smoking gun to slow down her juggernaut towards the nomination.