A relative of a victim of the Benghazi attacks is speaking out after Hillary Clinton said the ‘political’ probe of the attacks was one of a litany of things working against her in the presidential election.
Clinton brought up Benghazi Wednesday after running through a long list of factors she said drove her defeat, from FBI Director James Comey to Russian election interference.
‘Take the Benghazi tragedy—you know, I have one of the top Republicans, Kevin McCarthy, admitting we’re going to take that tragedy—because, you know, we’ve lost people, unfortunately, going back to the Reagan administration, if you talk about recent times, in diplomatic attacks,’ Clinton said on the ‘Today Show’ on NBC.
Clinton called the House Benghazi committee a ‘political football’ aimed at undermining her
‘But boy, it was turned into a political football. And it was aimed at undermining my credibility, my record, my accomplishments.’
Michael Ingmire, the uncle of IT officer Sean Smith, who was killed in the Benghazi attacks, took immediate exception to Clinton’s comments.
‘She’s been in plausible deniability about Benghazi ever since it happened,’ Ingmire told Fox News. ‘She was standing, basically before the coffins of Americans, blaming a horrible anti-Islamic video, but she’s just being consistent with her psychosis. The liar, the criminal, the crooked politician — those are the three faces of Hillary,’ he fumed.
Clinton was referencing McCarthy’s comment on Fox News’ Sean Hannity program that referenced the special committee that investigated the attacks.
Clinton gave hours of testimony to the Benghazi committee, and her campaign sometimes invoked her strong performance as proof of her stamina
The Republican-led Benghazi committee probed Clinton for months. House Benghazi Committee Chairman, Trey Gowdy (R-SC), walks into a news conference with fellow Committee Republicans after the release of the Committees Benghazi report on Capitol Hill June 28, 2016 in Washington
A picture shows the interior of the burnt US consulate building in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on September 13, 2012 following an attack on the building late on September 11 in which the US ambassador to Libya and three other US nationals were killed. Libya said it has made arrests and opened a probe into the attack, amid speculation that Al-Qaeda rather than a frenzied mob was to blame
The uncle of Sean Smith, who died in the attacks, blasted Clinton for bringing up Benghazi
‘And let me give you one example. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s un-trustable,’ McCarthy said in 2015, providing fuel to critics who said the committee was designed muddy up Clinton.
NBC’s Matt Lauer is another target of Clinton in her new memoir, ‘What Happened.’ She bashes his handling of a candidate forum with Donald Trump where he dug into her email scandal but let Trump comments on the Iraq war slide.
‘When it comes to the self-inflicted wounds, did you make enough mistakes yourself to lose the election without any of the other things you talk about?’ Lauer asked her.
‘Well I will say no, Matt,’ Clinton responded.
Clinton fielded questions as she promoted her book, ‘What Happened,’ about the campaign.
Her statement about past diplomatic losses was an apparent reference to the bombing of the embassy in Beirut in 1983