Hillary Clinton dismisses Benghazi ‘conspiracy theories’ ahead of her testimony
Hillary Clinton says she doesn’t know what to expect when she testifies before the House Select Committee on Benghazi this week, but it’s clear the panel “ended up becoming a partisan arm of the Republican National Committee” determined to derail her 2016 presidential bid.
“I think it’s pretty clear that whatever they might’ve thought they were doing, they ended up becoming a partisan arm of the Republican National Committee with an overwhelming focus on trying to — as they admitted — drive down my poll numbers,” Clinton told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview that aired on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “I’ve already testified about Benghazi. I testified to the best of my ability before the Senate and the House. I don’t know that I have very much to add.”
Clinton noted that this is the eighth such committee to investigate the Benghazi attacks.
“They’ve all looked into this and basically just rejected the conspiracy theories that are still floating in some circles,” Clinton said. “I will do my very best to answer their questions but I don’t really know what their objective is right now.”
She also dismissed the controversy surrounded her use of a private email server as secretary of state, saying, “nothing that I was sent or that I sent was marked ‘classified.’”
The Democratic frontrunner is scheduled to appear before the committee Thursday on Capitol Hill.
On CBS’ “Face The Nation,” Benghazi committee chairman Trey Gowdy brushed off critics, including some Republicans, who say that the panel’s aim has been unfairly focused on Clinton.
“By the time we’re through,” Gowdy said, “we will have interviewed 70 witnesses. She’s one out of 70. I get that she gets more attention than the other 69. But, frankly, if you ask me, the eyewitnesses on the ground that night in Benghazi are more important to me, as a former prosecutor, than the former secretary of state.”
The South Carolina Republican added: “I have told my own Republican colleagues and friends, shut up talking about things that you don’t know anything about. And unless you’re on the committee, you have no idea what we have done, why we have done it and what new facts we have found.”
Clinton speaks at a rally in Nashua, N.H., on Friday. (Photo: Brian Snyde/Reuters)
Earlier this month, former President Bill Clinton called Republican frontrunner Donald Trump a “master brander” whose “pizzazz and zip” has generated excitement within the GOP.
Hillary Clinton agrees with her husband’s assessment of the former “Celebrity Apprentice” star.
“He has brought his oversize personality and his reality television experience to the highest level of American politics and seems to be getting a very positive response among a large part of the Republican electorate,” she said.
But she vowed to continue to criticize Trump “for going beyond the bounds of what I think is appropriate for anybody running for president” — namely, “the attacks that he’s made on immigrants [and] women.”
Clinton declined the opportunity to criticize her Democratic challenger, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, saying any policy differences the pair have pale in comparison to those running for the Republican nomination.
“You could see on that stage in Las Vegas how we are maybe approaching these problems with different solutions, but we’re both seeing the pressures that American families are under and the challenges that they’re facing,” she said. “We’re not peddling the same old failed policies of trickle-down economics and let the corporations do what they want and cut taxes on the wealthy.”
Clinton added: “I think he is raising issues that the electorate — not just Democrats, everybody needs to be thinking about. He has put forward his plans with passionate intensity, and I have put forth mine and just think of the difference between us and the Republicans who have put forward nothing but the same old out of touch, out of date policies.”
A day after the debate, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said “the time has come” for Vice President Joe Biden to decide whether or not to jump into the race.
But Clinton says there shouldn’t be a timetable for such a decision.
“That’s up to Vice President Biden,” she said. “Certainly I’m not in any way suggesting or recommending that the vice president accept any timetable other than the one that is clicking inside of him. He has to make this decision.”
