May 2, 2014 - Pay Us Back: House Republicans Owe Taxpayers $14 Million For Benghazi Investigations. House Republicans have already wasted 14 million taxpayer dollars on Benghazi investigations. Instead of appointing a Select House Committee on Benghazi, Speaker Boehner needs to pay the taxpayers back the money that he has wasted.
Q. If Mrs. Clinton is having a good day, what will that look like?
A. Mrs. Clinton’s biggest challenge is to appear composed and patient during many hours of questioning. Some Democrats believe that the Republicans will spend the first several hours of the hearing asking Mrs. Clinton about the Benghazi attacks as a way to wear her down, and then question her about emails in the final round.
The last time Mrs. Clinton testified before Congress was in 2013, when she appeared before House and Senate committees looking into the Benghazi attacks. That day, Mrs. Clinton accepted responsibility for the security lapses in Benghazi, but said that requests for additional security at the State Department outpost were not sent directly to her. At one point, she became exasperated with the questioning and said there was too much focus on how the Benghazi attacks had been characterized in their early hours. “Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans?’’ she said, her voice rising. “What difference, at this point, does it make?”
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What Hillary Clinton Can Expect When She Testifies on Benghazi
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Hillary Rodham Clinton testified before the House Select Committee on Benghazi on Thursday.Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times
Q. What is the mission of the House Select Committee on Benghazi?
A. The Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi, Libya, as the panel is officially known, was created in May 2014 to look into what happened before, during and after the 2012 attack on two American outposts — one belonging to the State Department, the other to the C.I.A. — in Benghazi. Seven congressional panels had investigated the attacks, but Speaker John A. Boehner said the administration had covered up what occurred. Democrats said that Mr. Boehner created the committee to serve as a vehicle to undermine Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Mr. Boehner appointed Representative Trey Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor popular with the conservative wing of the Republican Party, to lead the committee. The panel received little attention until March 2015, when it was revealed that it had been given emails about Libya from a personal email account that Mrs. Clinton had exclusively relied on when she was secretary of state.
The Times is analyzing key moments live from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s testimony on Thursday to a House committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
Q. What questions will Mrs. Clinton face about the Benghazi attacks?
A. Lawmakers are likely to focus on Mrs. Clinton’s response to early warnings of increasingly dangerous security conditions in Benghazi — warnings that department officials failed to heed, an independent inquiry into the attack concluded in December 2012. That inquiry sharply criticized the State Department for a lack of seasoned security personnel and for relying on untested local militias to safeguard the compound. But the report did not place blame on anyone higher than the level of assistant secretary.
Mrs. Clinton has acknowledged that she was briefed on a series of events that indicated that security in Benghazi was deteriorating in the months before the attack. But she said she had gone along with a recommendation from subordinates that the Benghazi State Department post be kept open and assumed that they would take the necessary steps to protect it.
Q:. What do we still not know about the Benghazi attack?
A. Republicans contend that the administration has not provided an answer about why Susan E. Rice, the national security adviser who at the time was the United States ambassador to the United Nations, went on national television the Sunday after the attacks and provided an inaccurate account about what occurred. Ms. Rice said that the attacks were spontaneously spawned by an anti-American video and were not preplanned by terrorists. Mrs. Clinton will probably be asked about the administration’s initial narrative about the attacks. And, she will likely be asked why the administration had Ms. Rice appear on television instead of the secretary herself.
Q. If the committee is investigating the attacks, why is Mrs. Clinton going to be asked about her emails?
A. The emails about Libya that the committee received had never been provided to any of the congressional committees that investigated the attacks. Mr. Gowdy has said that he has the right to investigate Mrs. Clinton’s email arrangement because the committee’s charter calls for him to look into how the administration complied with other congressional inquiries into the incident. Mrs. Clinton and Democrats on the committee have said that Mr. Gowdy has no right to investigate her emails because they are not related to the attacks.
Q. What do the Republicans need to do for the hearing to be considered a success for them?
A. The Republicans need to placate their base without appearing overly partisan. It is unclear if they can do both. The base would like to see the committee embarrass Mrs. Clinton and get her to make a significant gaffe or admit to some type of wrongdoing. But if the committee members appear overzealous, they will open themselves up to criticism from Democrats who will argue that the Republicans are just trying to undermine Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.
Q. If Mrs. Clinton is having a good day, what will that look like?
A. Mrs. Clinton’s biggest challenge is to appear composed and patient during many hours of questioning. Some Democrats believe that the Republicans will spend the first several hours of the hearing asking Mrs. Clinton about the Benghazi attacks as a way to wear her down, and then question her about emails in the final round.
The last time Mrs. Clinton testified before Congress was in 2013, when she appeared before House and Senate committees looking into the Benghazi attacks. That day, Mrs. Clinton accepted responsibility for the security lapses in Benghazi, but said that requests for additional security at the State Department outpost were not sent directly to her. At one point, she became exasperated with the questioning and said there was too much focus on how the Benghazi attacks had been characterized in their early hours. “Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans?’’ she said, her voice rising. “What difference, at this point, does it make?”
Q. What do we still not know about Mrs. Clinton’s private email account?
A. It is still unclear who at the State Department gave Mrs. Clinton approval to use a private rather than an official government account. It is also unclear why Mrs. Clinton did not hand her emails over to the State Department when she left office in 2013.
