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Analysis of Hillary Clinton's Testimony at Benghazi Committee. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired October 22, 2015 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:30:00] GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I would also have to say at the beginning of the hearing, Congressman Roskam asked a very legitimate question, which is, I think this policy in Libya was bad. You own the bad Libya policy. He tried to kind make that point. She said it was the president's policy. We were just, you know, we were carrying it out. Then you had a Congresswoman, Brooks, saying you were derelict in your duties. It seemed to me as if they didn't get together on their plan.

And then in terms of spending a lot of time on Blumenthal, those of us who covered politics for a while know him from Bill Clinton's White House, the whole Monica Lewinsky stuff. The American public doesn't really care about Sidney Blumenthal I don't think. To spend so much time talking about him seems to be me be a waste of their valuable committee time where they should be talking about what happened in Benghazi. And I don't think they really got to that much today.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: It was interesting, Jeffrey Toobin, you're a former prosecutor. Trey Gowdy, the chairman, he's a former prosecutor down in South Carolina. He says he's not a prosecutor right now. He's very defensive on this issue. He says he's an investigator. He only wants to come up with the truth. But if you listen closely, the way he was making his case, he sounded like a prosecutor.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Sure, he does. You know, Michael Kingsley (ph), my mentor in journalism, you know, he had Kingsley's (ph) law about gaffes, which is when you unintentionally tell the truth. McCarthy's statement that this whole committee is designed to bring down Hillary Clinton's poll numbers, that hangs over today's testimony enormously. I don't know that I heard anything from Trey Gowdy today that really refuted what McCarthy said.

I think it's remarkable when you think he had 10 minutes, only 10 minutes, to ask questions of the former secretary of state and he chose out of all the subjects regarding the four people who died here to ask about e-mails from Blumenthal, a former colleague of mine at "The New Yorker," former colleague of Paul's in the White House. Someone who is, with all due respect, not a very important person in the United States, that that is someone he chose to ask questions about is utterly baffling to me.

BLITZER: We'll get more analysis on what has occurred during the first round of this important hearing today. Let's take a quick break. Much more of our special coverage

right after this.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[13:36:40] REP. ADAM SCHIFF, (D), CALIFORNIA: I wonder if you would like to comment on what it's like to be the subject of an allegation that you deliberately interfered with security that cost the life of a friend.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Congressman, it's a very personally painful accusation. It has been rejected and disproven by nonpartisan dispassionate investigators. But nevertheless, having it continued to be bandied around is deeply distressing to me. I would imagine I thought more about what happened then all of you put together. I've lost more sleep than all of you put together. I have been racking my brain about what more could have been done or should have been done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Hillary Clinton getting a bit emotional there responding to Congressman Schiff regarding the death, the murder of Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador in Libya, in Benghazi, and three other Americans.

We want to welcome back our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting from Washington.

We're getting analysis on the first three and a half hours of testimony Hillary Clinton provided to members of the Select Committee, seven Republicans, five Democrats, Republican Chairman Trey Gowdy.

Two of our CNN political commentators are with us, Amanda Carpenter, a former communications director for Senator Ted Cruz; Paul Begala, one of our CNN political commentators, a Democratic strategist, very actively involved in a pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC right now.

Amanda, I'm anxious to get your reaction to what we heard during these first three and a half hours.

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think the hearing started off much stronger than it ended. You saw Republicans attempting to paint Libya, so to speak, as Hillary's war. Really painting her as the person in charge of or policy there. I thought it was going to be a really good discussion that Hillary would be eager to have as well. They started talking about how everyone knew that the ambassador and other Americans were in a dangerous and growing more dangerous situation as time went on. And maybe people weren't paying attention to those signals. Those issues weren't pressed as much. And then it went into this kind of tangent about Sidney Blumenthal's e-mails, which D.C. insiders know who he is. What the Republicans are trying to do with that is say, listen, this guy who really didn't know what he was talking about with Libya had direct accession to the secretary of state. Meanwhile, she wasn't paying attention to people asking for more security, who are career professionals within the State Department. I think they could have gone further to talk about why that was a bad idea, how the policies have failed in Libya. Look what happened earlier this year. 21 Christians murdered, beheaded on the beaches there. So we should have a broader discussion about what the Libya policy is, what the strategic objections were. I hope they get that in the second half of the hearing because we didn't get far enough in the first half.

BLITZER: Some of the Republicans, Paul, were making the charge, Congressman Mike Pompeo, Republican of Kansas, she was relying on Blumenthal for information about Libya, she wasn't relying on her bureau of intelligence and research, the CIA, all the other bureau of Middle Eastern affairs at the Statement Department, she was relying on Sidney Blumenthal, which she discarded and she rejected that assertion immediately.

[13:40:01] PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Not only did she but a very well prepared representative, Linda Sanchez, Democrat on the panel, had a clip from "Meet the Press," I think it was this weekend, where the substitute anchor, Andrea Mitchell, who has been covering the State Department for years, said, no, I cover the place, I know that's not where she gets it. So that was not Congressman Pompeo's best moment.

BLITZER: The argument he was making, most of the e-mails she had, the committee received from her about Libya, were e-mails that Blumenthal had sent her unsolicited or solicited.

BEGALA: Right, because when she was doing Libya policy with the experts on Libya policy, it was actually at the State Department, not by e-mail. There is a worm hole of Sid Blumenthal, who is my old colleague and friend, is hilarious to me because there's no chance the Republicans win that. They had a strategy here, I think, which is to paint Hillary as either incompetent or corrupt. I don't think I'm not an unbiased observer. Let other people decide. I don't think they laid a glove on her. She did a very good job of rising above that. She had a strategy. Rise above it. Answer the questions. Rise above it. Don't let them get under your skin. But also something I had not thought of, she had a policy goal, which is defend American engagement around the world, even in dangerous places. She would welcome that debate about Libya policy. The Democrats had a strategy to paint the committee as partisan. They start with the wind at their back. 72 percent of Americans agree with the House Republican leader that this is a political deal. It's 92 today. It will be 102 probably by the time we wake up tomorrow morning. Not, so far, a terrific job by the House Republicans.

BLITZER: Our global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott, has been listening carefully to the testimony.

Elise, you've been doing some fact checking. What are you finding?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, there were a lot of things about what happened at the time that, I mean, there are a lot of half-truths from the Republicans, talking about how Hillary Clinton handled things. But not necessarily true. For instance, just in the very beginning, there was talk about how Hillary Clinton hand-selected the ARB, this independent panel. When, in fact, the legislation that sets up an ARB called for the secretary of state to appoint these members. And that's the kind of, you know, hitting Hillary Clinton in those type of things.

I mean, on the Blumenthal thing, it was true that she received e- mails from Blumenthal in all this. At the time, a lot of people at the State Department -- you'd talk to them and they'd say, you know, he's got his hand on some things but not on others. Yes, she was passing it around, but I wouldn't necessarily say his advice was readily received and readily acted upon. Sometimes it was a thing about being polite, saying, that I'll pass it around, and other times that he had something interesting. I think what the committee was trying to do, as we've been saying, is go back -- they're trying to say that Hillary Clinton was the architect of the Libya policy. You heard Congressman Roskam say, well, this was your baby, you were the one who was the architect.

Another fact checking thing here, Wolf, it wasn't only necessarily Hillary Clinton. Certainly, she was one of the top leaders of the policy. But she also had then-ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice and Samantha Power, who's now the U.N. ambassador, but was in the White House at the time, very strongly advocating for military action. So the Republicans are trying to paint this as Hillary Clinton's policy. And they say she lost interest and ignored some of the warning signs. But clearly, laying not only the decision to go into Libya at her lap but for also creating the conditions on the ground that led to the extremism in Benghazi, and then they say that she's going back.

BLITZER: There's no doubt what happened in Libya is not what the Obama administration hoped would happen. It turned out to be a real disaster. Yes, Gadhafi is gone, but you look what's there on the ground now, the terrorism, the al Qaeda-affiliated groups, the anarchy that continues today in Libya is certainly not what the then-secretary of state had planned on seeing, what the president had planned on seeing, what the allies, the NATO allies worked for when they got rid of Gadhafi.

Elise, stand by.

We're going to take another quick break. I want to show a picture of the hearing room as we go to this break. Take a look. You see the chairman of the committee, Trey Gowdy, he's almost alone there, sitting at his chair, inside the Longworth House Office Building. I assume he's preparing for this next round, which is going to begin momentarily. Quite exciting in the first round. We'll see what happens in round two when we come back.

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[13:48:52] REP. MIKE POMPEO, (R), KANSAS: You know how many security requests there were in the first quarter of 2012?

CLINTON: For every one or for Benghazi?

POMPEO: For -- I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am, related to Benghazi in Libya. Do you know how many there were?

CLINTON: No, I do not know.

POMPEO: Ma'am, there were just over 100-plus. Second quarter, do you know how many there were?

CLINTON: No, I do not.

POMPEO: There were 172-ish. How many there were in July and August, and then in that week and a few days before the attack, do you know?

CLINTON: There were a number of them, I know that.

POMPEO: Yes, ma'am, 83 by our count. That's over 600 requests. You've testified here this morning that you had none of those reach your desk. Is that correct also?

CLINTON: That's correct.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Tough exchange between Republican Congressman Mike Pompeo, of Kansas, and Hillary Clinton during this first round of testimony today.

Jake Tapper, as we watch some of the effort to go after Hillary Clinton on what happened in that horrible day, September 11th, 2012, when those four Americans were killed by that terrorist incident in Libya, are they scoring points against her or is she holding her own?

[13:49:57] JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT & CNN ANCHOR, STATE OF THE UNION: I think one of the things I wish the committee members would explore a little bit more is this question of why so many of these requests for additional security from Chris Stevens, from others in Libya, things I've been reporting on since October 2012, why they were not met with more security. We have had a lot of testimony in the past two years-plus about these requests. When I asked Secretary Clinton last week about how I never understood why they weren't met, she basically said what she said today, which is there are security professional who are the kinds of people who put their lives on the line and they assess what is needed and they did not feel that more security needed to be sent to Libya. I'm still curious as to why that is. Do they need more money? Do they need more funding? Do they need more personnel? Why are these individuals not getting the security they need? I hope that when this process is over, we have some answers to that because we have been through a number of hearings where this point has been made, and yet I still don't find that a very satisfying answer, while the diplomatic security experts felt like they didn't need to send more security. Those experts, however heroic they are, they were wrong. More security was needed.

Another point that Congressman Jim Jordan, of Ohio, was making that I though was interesting had to do with the fact that the Obama administration, not just Secretary Clinton, but writ large, made a point out of blaming the attack on that anti-Muslim video. As we know, in retrospect, that was not the reason for it. And one of the things that was interesting that the Democrats on the Benghazi Committee have previously released this month had to do with the conversation that Secretary Clinton had with the Egyptian prime minister at the time, in which she said, according to notes taken, quote, "We know that the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack, not a protest." That was a day later, September 12th. She also said to him, "Based on the information we saw today, we believe the group that claimed responsibility was affiliated with al Qaeda, that's Ansar al Sharia (ph)." Now the next day or later that day, Ansar al Sharia (ph) denied having anything to do with the attack. But it definitely shows that there were senior individuals in the Obama administration, including Secretary Clinton, who had serious concerns that this was not as a result of the video. And yet, within that week, the Obama administration, including Secretary Clinton, continued to say it was the fault of the video. Why? Why is that?

The theory from the Republicans is President Obama was in the midst of an intense reelection fight with Mitt Romney. This is September 2012. And one of his talking points, one of his selling points for his reelection was that al Qaeda was on the run and the United States was winning this fight against terrorism and that would undermine that. Is that the reason why so much credibility was given to a video, even though Secretary Clinton, according to e-mails that we have now from the Democrats and Republicans, knew that there was credible information that it was not the video.

BLITZER: And made the point that a few days later after the attack on September 11th, 2012, Susan Rice, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, went on five Sunday talk shows and raised the specter of that video of Mohammad being the cause of what happened in Tripoli.

TAPPER: That's right. And there was a prosecution of that filmmaker for tax evasion, and a lot of attention on the film, when we know now that was not the reason for this terrorist attack that killed four Americans in Libya. So I don't think we're going to have somebody in the Obama administration say, yes, we were trying to divert attention from the fact that our anti-terrorism policy was failing. But that is something that we need to have more questions on and more answers from Secretary Clinton.

BLITZER: And in that exchange, Jim Jordan, the Republican Congressman from Ohio, had with her, he basically says, you knew that night, you were e-mailing your own family that this was a terrorist attack. Why didn't you stick with that in the days that followed the administration?

We're going to have much more --

TAPPER: It sounds like there is a lot of contradictory information that she was getting --

BLITZER: Right.

TAPPER: -- but that's not what she said.

BLITZER: Standby. Everyone standby.

Much more of our special coverage. They're in a break right now. They are having lunch. They are getting ready to resume part two of this special hearing, the Benghazi Committee hearing. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:58:42] BLITZER: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. And this is CNN special coverage of the Benghazi hearing. Hillary Clinton testifying before the House Select Committee. The Democratic presidential front runner facing several hours of questioning already. And more questions, several more hours to come. You've been listening to both Republicans and Democrats.

There's the hearing room. It's empty right now, for all practical purposes. But they will be resuming momentarily.

Some of the Republican members are actually speaking to reporters right now. Let's listen in to see what they're saying.

REP. MARTHA ROBY, (R), ALABAMA: -- as to Mr. Pompeo's questioning, there were hundreds and hundreds of requests for additional security, including by the ambassador, that were turned down. So we're hearing differing things. And, again, we look forward to more questions, more substantive questions about the secretary's involvement in the days, weeks and months leading up to the attack, during the attack.

REP. PETER ROSKAM, (R), ILLINOIS: We've got time for a couple of questions.

Yeah?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You say this is a fact-finding mission, but it sounds like you have drawn your conclusions about what she's done wrong.

ROSKAM: Look, those were evident this morning. So I think there's an opportunity to hear more things. Secretary Clinton had ample opportunity over the course of this entire day. She's had ample opportunity to describe her situation and her story and she is no stranger to big venues. So this is not somebody who needs our help to tell her story. But we do have a responsibility and that is to find these facts.