Interview with Hillary Clinton about Benghazi

“Somebody’s lying,” I said to Hillary Clinton. “Who is it?”

“Well, it’s not me,” she answered. “That’s all I can tell you.”

Tom Eastman, Mark Guerringue, Hillary Clinton

This was last Wednesday when Hillary’s huge entourage returned to The Conway Daily Sun’s office for another interview. She’d been there in 2007 during her first presidential campaign but I was still teaching then and I missed it. This time I really wanted to be there, so I drove twenty-five miles in a snowstorm, hoping she wouldn’t cancel. She didn’t.

Few journalists are able to pin her down because she controls who gets to ask her questions as well as what those questions will be. I don’t think she was expecting any tough ones at the Sun interview. Sun publisher Mark Guerringue’s opening comments included a reference to the Benghazi attack and her conflicting claims about what caused it. She referred to several congressional investigations, saying: “If people don’t want to accept the facts, there’s nothing I can do about that… and for people to use [Stevens’] death, Seans’s death, and the death of the two CIA contractor’s for political purposes really dishonors them and… their whole purpose is to somehow derail me. And I understand it’s nothing but politics to them but it’s not just politics to me.”

I inserted myself at this point, saying: “I have a specific question about that if I could interject.”

“Sure,” said Mark.

Turning to Hillary, I said, “You mentioned the families of the Benghazi victims and the discrepancy Mark brought up about your email — or conversation maybe — with your daughter…”

“Um-hmm,” said Hillary.

“…about it being an al Qaida-like group, Ansar al Sharia. Then you told an Egyptian diplomat in a phone conversation that it was a planned attack and not a protest. Umm, but then, when the bodies were brought back, you spoke to the family members and you told them, they say that you told them, this was a spontaneous demonstration. And then George Stephanopolous asked on This Week: “Did you tell them it was about the film?”

Hillary on This Week

“Um-hmm,” she said.

“And you said, ‘No.’ Now, somebody’s lying…”

“Well first let me say,” she interjected, but I pressed on.

“…Who is it?”

“Well, not me. That’s all I can tell you,” she continued. “But, you know, people were incredibly emotionally distraught. Let, let’s give everybody a little bit of breathing room here and recognize that, [pause] There — I mean I-I’m trying to remember what is in the public record and what isn’t. Let’s just say that some of the families didn’t even know that their sons were working for the CIA and were in Benghazi. This was a huge emotional blow, and I’m very sympathetic to that. I can only tell you what the facts were. That period when I talked to the Egyptian Prime Minister was in that bubble when we thought there was a terrorist group taking credit for it, and that’s what we said. And when they withdrew, and when the intelligence community, led by the CIA, basically said we don’t know yet. Because remember, the CIA and the intel community was guiding us about what they thought happened and we had to rely on that. We didn’t have any independent information or verification. All this material was coming in. The CIA was sorting it out.”

There were several places here where I wanted to interrupt her, but I restrained myself and let her go on.

She went on, saying, “And if you look at the reports that were done, ah, by the minority on the Benghazi Committee, because it’s a much more reliable source than the Republican majority. They go through, chapter and verse, timing, about what happened, when, and the bottom line is what happened is that people were doing the best they could dealing with information that was changing, and the CIA wrote and approved the talking points that were used, ahh, and it was also true that from Egypt, to Tunisia, to Pakistan, the video was the primary spark that was sending people into protesting against our facilities. All of this was happening simultaneously. It wasn’t either/or as much as people want to get to the bottom of it. It was an amalgam of information and action.”

“I’m sure those people were distraught,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Three different people — Tyrone Woods’ father said — about you — that you said, ‘We’re going to have those people arrested who were responsible for the death of your son.’ Sean Smith’s mother reported, ‘She [Hillary] said that it was because of the video.’ And then Glenn Doherty’s sister said that, “You chose to, in that moment, to basically perpetuate what you knew was untrue.’ So, all three of them say you told them that.”

“Well,” she said.

I ignored her and continued, “And you say you didn’t tell them that.”

“I can only tell you what I know happened,” she said. “I can’t, I can’t speak to them. I can tell you what Chris Steven’s family believes. I can tell you what Sean Smith’s wife believes. I can tell you what other family members believe, because yes,”

“But you didn’t tell them that,” I said.

“I did not tell them that, but, I can’t recite for you everything that was in a conversation where people were sobbing, where people were distraught, where groups of us — the president, the vice president — we were all making the rounds, talking to people, listening to people, and I was in a very difficult position because I had not yet said that two of the four people dead were CIA. Because we were under, ah, very strict directions, from the CIA, not to reveal that yet. So this was — this was — again, part of the fog of war. And, you know, I regret that anybody [pause] has a [pause], you know, an attitude or feeling that I do not [pause] think [pause] is accurate, but I’m not going to do anything other than express my sympathy for them because, I think they deserve it. They were, people who lost their children. They have every right to believe whatever they want to believe, but the facts don’t bear it out.”

Being part of a team I dropped it there, not because I wanted to — especially when she said, “the CIA wrote and approved the talking points that were used.” — but because I could not dominate the interview with about twenty others present who also wanted to question her.

Carly Fiorina

Coincidentally, that very morning I did a telephone interview with Carly Fiorina, the other woman running for president, and told her about the pending Clinton interview. I said if you could ask Hillary one question, what would it be? Without hesitation, Carly said: “Why did you lie? Why did you lie to American people the morning after the Benghazi attack?” I told her that’s exactly the question I chose. Carly’s interview deserves its own column, which is coming up next.

For three years, I’ve been angry that Hillary Clinton, President Obama, Susan Rice, and others, claimed it was a spontaneous demonstration over a video that killed four Americans at Benghazi and not a radical Muslim terrorist attack. I wrote about it several times including here and here. They knew different, and they said what they knew was not true. That’s lying — but I never heard any journalist or member of Congress ever use that word to Hillary’s face — and that’s what I was determined to do when I had the chance.

I did, and the Sun’s account of the interview, containing an accurate but abbreviated mention of my exchange with Hillary, was linked by The Drudge Report. From there it was picked up by dozens of media outlets. My intent here is to give readers a complete and accurate account our five-minute exchange.

Podcast of interview

Romney Rout

It’s not going to be close next Tuesday.

After four years, most Americans are sick of listening to President Obama make speeches while jerking his head from side to side as he reads from his precious teleprompter and tries to act sincere. He’s going to get trounced.

At this writing, the MainStream Media are still insisting it’s a dead heat, but I don’t believe it. Few presidents ever took office with such high expectations as Obama did. Fewer still would ever have been able to fulfill them - but least of all him. Skill with a teleprompter is fine for campaigning, but not much help when governing. For that he would need experience, judgement, knowledge of history and economics - and willingness to compromise. None of these does he have. He had the good will of the American people and his party had control of both houses of Congress, but his outdated Keynesian stimulus and socialist Obamacare programs have strangled our economy and produced nothing but enormous debt.

How was he able to maintain the facade of competence as long as he did? Because just as they created him in the first place, the Mainstream Media protected him throughout his term, ignoring or playing down bad news and creating or amplifying good news on nearly every front - especially in the past six weeks since September 11th. But that’s all coming apart before our eyes

 Nearly every day something comes out that makes it more and more obvious that the Obama Administration has been lying from the beginning about the murder of four Americans in Benghazi. It’s bad on four different fronts:

First are repeated requests for increased security by Ambassador Stevens which were ignored or refused by both Hillary Clinton at the State Department and Barack Obama in the White House.

Second, are repeated requests for military intervention during the attack which were refused. Who refused them? Real-time video of the attack played in the White House situation room while Obama was in the building, but the president didn’t authorize that help be sent when there was ample time to do it and save the lives of at least the two Navy Seals who were under attack by 120-plus jihadists! Three times they were denied.

  Third is the deliberate lie about the attack being the result of a demonstration against an obscure You-tube video nobody ever heard of - a lie repeated for nearly two weeks by the president, the secretary of state, and our UN ambassador - then amplified by the MainStream Media.

Yeah, right

 Fourth are the continuing lies coming from administration officials as they’re being cornered with questions about the whole disgusting affair - in spite of doing everything they can to avoid them until after the election on November 6th.

The MSM is doing everything they can too, but they won’t be able to keep the lid on. The more they try, the worse it gets. A few still have remnants of a journalistic conscience and they know that continued silence on this story is unconscionable. One intrepid reporter named Kyle Clark at KUSA, an NBC affiliate in Denver, put it right on Obama’s head last week: “Were the Americans under attack at the consulate in Benghazi Libya denied requests for help during that attack? And is it fair to tell Americans that what happened is under investigation and we'll all find out after the election?” he asked.

Obama wiggled out of answering, but Clark followed up: “Were they denied requests for help during the attack?” he asked again.

A clearly shaken Obama proceeded to rattle off a long, embarrassing soliloquy on every other subject but what he was asked, running down the clock until the interview was over - but not before making one slip: Near the beginning, Obama said: “. . . I can tell you, as I've said over the last couple of months since this happened, the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to . . .”

That statement prompted former assistant Secretary of Defense Bing West to say last Saturday: “In my judgement the audio track will show the White House knew that there was an attack going on. The real critical issue is the president says that he immediately ordered all available assets to help. The military would have put out an order from the president. There’s no question about that… What I’m asking is, ‘Show us the order!’ Mr. President if you said use everything available and our military immediately sent out the order, simply show us the order. I have great reservations that there is no such order.” (Emphasis in original)

I have the same reservations, and most other Americans who pay attention have them too. They know our president is lying.

The MSM’s Sunday morning news shows barely kept the lid on Benghazi this week, but I doubt they’ll be able to accomplish that next Sunday - with the election two days hence. Pressure is building fast and won’t be contained. Soon will come an explosion of indignation. Think of how much attention the MSM gave to Cindy Sheehan.

Cindy Sheehan

Then notice how they’re ignoring Charles Woods’ heart-wrenching statements about his dead son, Tyrone.

Charles Woods, grieving father of slain Seal, Tyrone Woods

Millions of Americans are hearing their silence.

No. It won’t be close. I predict a landslide for Romney.