Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) accused Hillary Clinton Thursday of blaming the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi on a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islamic video.
“You knew the truth and that’s not what the American people got,” the House Select Committee on Benghazi member told Clinton.
{mosads}“There’s no evidence for a spontaneous protest,” Jordan said. “You picked the video as the narrative. Where did it originate? It originated with you.
“Madame Secretary, Americans can live with the fact that good people sometimes give their lives for their country,” he added. “They don’t like it, but they can take it.
“What they can’t take is when their government is not square with them. You could tell the truth [and] call it a terrorist attack.”
The Obama administration initially attributed the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya to a spontaneous protest over the film, “The Innocence of Muslims.”
The YouTube clip sparked outrage among the Islamic world as it painted their prophet Muhammad as a violent child molester. At the time, the uproar over the video was cited as the driving force behind a separate incident at a U.S. embassy in Egypt where protesters scaled the walls.
The Obama administration later said the assault in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.
Clinton said the video entered the Obama administration’s analysis of Benghazi given the global climate at the time.
“During the course of that week, we had many attacks that were about that video,” she said.
“It was a great concern to us because the inflammatory video had been shown on Egyptian TV, which has a larger reach than just Egypt,” Clinton said.
“There is no doubt in my mind that we did the best we could with the information that we had at the time.
“None of us can speak to the individual motivations of those who overran our compound and attacked our CIA annex. I’m sorry it doesn’t fit your narrative, congressman.”
Republicans have long argued that the Obama administration misled the American public by focusing on “The Innocence of Muslims” in the talking points it used after the attack.
Jordan charged on Thursday that their public efforts were so President Obama would look strong heading into the 2012 presidential election.
“Libya was supposed to be a great success story for the Obama administration,” he said.
“In Libya you’ve got weapons and explosives, in Cairo, you’ve got spray paint and rocks,” Jordan said, citing the coordinated militant presence in Libya. “We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film.”
Clinton parried that the video hypothesis was just one idea for the attack’s inspiration over three years ago.
“The situation was very fluid [and] there was lot of conflicting information,” she said. “There was probably a lot of different motivations.”