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Stakes are High in Benghazi Testimony; Hillary Clinton Enters House to Testify Before Benghazi Committee. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired October 22, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:09] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting live from Washington. We'd like to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world.

Just moments from now the race for president of the United States and a very tense political battle collide up on Capitol Hill. Hillary Clinton getting ready to take a seat in front of the House of Representatives Special Committee on Benghazi. Take a look at these live pictures coming in from the room right now. Seven Republicans and five Democrats will question the former secretary of state on the events of September 11, 2012. An attack carried out on the anniversary of 9/11 when American interests overseas conceivably should have been on high alert.

On that day, four Americans at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, lost their lives. Among them, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens. He was a veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service, served in Libya. As the top U.S. official there, he had gone to Benghazi from Tripoli, the capital, just one day before the attack. Sean Smith was an information officer and a 10-year veteran of the State Department. Before Libya, he had been stationed in Baghdad, Iraq. Glen Doherty was a former Navy SEAL and was working as the security contractor in Benghazi protecting the American mission. He and Tyrone Woods, also a former Navy SEAL, were killed when they rushed to help during the attack.

The committee itself is looking into the events surrounding the attack, the security before the violence, and the response to the deaths by officials at the State Department, the CIA, the White House and elsewhere. This is not the first time Hillary Clinton has testified on the Benghazi attack. In front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee back in January of 2013, we heard this exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand.

CLINTON: 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. What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, senator.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The then secretary was forced to wear, by the way, those big glasses at that hearing following a fall where she suffered a concussion. The incident also led to Hillary Clinton's developing a blood clot in her brain. By all accounts, she's fine today.

As for the Republicans on the Select Committee on Benghazi and the chairman, Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, their most recent focus seemingly has been on Hillary Clinton's e-mails and the private e-mail server she used during her four years as secretary of state. They've also come under fire for turning the process into what the critics are calling a political attack, directly aimed at trying to damage Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, as alleged by the Republican congressman, the majority leader, Kevin McCarthy of California and Richard Hanna of New York, another Republican congressman.

We have assembled our impressive team of correspondents and analysts to put today's hearing in perspective and to talk about what's at stake and what's expected on Capitol Hill during these coming hours. Our chief political correspondent Dana Bash and our senior political reporter Manu Raju, they're up on Capitol Hill. Our senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar is here with us, as is our senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta. Actually he's over at the White House. Our CNN global affairs correspondent Elise Labott. Our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, our senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. Also joining us, our CNN political commentators Amanda Carpenter and Paul Begala.

Let's start with Dana Bash, our chief political correspondent. She's up on Capitol Hill.

Dana, I understand you've been able to speak with some committee members as they prepare for today's hearing. Set the scene for us.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf.

Well, first of all, I can tell you that the public, which has been - there's been a big line here. They're actually able to go in right now. You can see just how intense it is here. How incredibly crowded it is. This is - you can even see beyond those cameras. That is the line for the public that has been stretching around the corner. As you can imagine, this is kind of a hot ticket, if you will, when it comes to Capitol Hill.

But as far as the panel is concerned, if you remember back when it was put together, the speaker decided to do it, Democrats, they considered boycotting this panel. But now they're here and they feel like they really have to defend Hillary Clinton and the process itself. But on the Republican side, I have been speaking to a couple of the Republican members on the committee and what they insist is that by the end of the day, what we are going to see is a lot less political than what you just played from a couple of Republicans who are not on this committee. That they have been working intensely and intensively on gathering research, on investigations for the past, you know, so many months and that this is going to be the first time, this is a word that one of the members has used with me who's going to be questioning today, this is the first time that you're going to see a holistic view of what happened that night in Benghazi, why it happened, how it happened and the whole security question following - the hours following the attack that night. So that's the aim at least on the Republican side. They insist - insist it's going to be a lot less political than the Democrats say that they expect it to be.

[09:35:21] BLITZER: All right, Dana, stand by. I want to go to CNN's senior political reporter Manu Raju. He's also up on Capitol Hill.

Give us a rundown of what to expect as this hearing gets underway in the coming moments.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Sure, Wolf.

Well, right in a few minutes actually Hillary Clinton will be walking right behind me and into that committee room where Dana is standing next to. And there are 12 committee members here, Wolf, seven Republicans, five Democrats, each of which are going to speak for about 10 minutes a piece. So we're expecting a very, very long day. At least four rounds of questioning. It could go much, much longer.

Now, Republicans are trying to showcase that they have new information here, even though there have been two other testimonies that Hillary Clinton has given on Capitol Hill in addition to a number of other investigations. They want to show that they have learned something new. They have been trying for weeks to declassify e-mails from the State Department and we believe that they certainly have.

In addition, they do have a batch of e-mails that they have not discussed publicly yet. And we expect that those to be discussed at the hearing. The question is going to be how Hillary responds to those because she has not seen those yet and how will she do? Will she trip up? Will it contradict her past testimony? We don't know any of that yet.

But we do know from the Hillary campaign, what they're trying to say, what she's trying to do is present a sober vision of what American foreign policy is like, the realities, the need to lead around the world and really the tragic circumstances around it in that 2012 attack. So I don't know how combative Hillary Clinton will be. She probably will leave a lot of those attacks to those house Democrats who will be defending her and contending that this committee is nothing but a partisan witch hunt. The question is going to be, how does she deal with some of these more pointed question, particularly in the later hours, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Manu, stand by.

This is just the fourth public hearing by the Select Benghazi Committee since it was seated last year. It's only public, we're told, because of demands by Hillary Clinton.

Our senior political correspondent, Brianna Keilar, is with us right now. We've got some pictures. She recently, just a few moments ago, left

her house in northwest Washington to drive down Massachusetts Avenue, all the way up here to Capitol Hill. So she's clearly been preparing for several days for this, going through session after session after session with her lawyers and her top aides.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: This is the culmination of a lot of preparation, of days of preparation, in fact. She is going to be testifying today for between eight and 10 hours. The expectation is there will be four, two-hour chunks of time where she will face questions from Republicans and from Democrats. And she's been preparing with a legal team, with her policy advisors, keeping in mind that this was some time ago when this happened. So she's reviewing her testimony back from 2013, just making sure that she has everything sort of in order and she doesn't contradict herself.

The plan for Republicans is to try to make this look less political, or at least that's what we hear from Trey Gowdy. But the - and the issue being that the focus will be more on Benghazi and less on the e- mail practices, which certainly have been a vulnerability for Hillary Clinton. The issue though is, it's going to be very tempting for Republicans to engage in talking about the e-mails. This is a tricky subject for Hillary Clinton. They don't want to be accused by their base of going too easy on Hillary Clinton.

And for her testimony, what we're expecting is for her to make a case for expeditionary diplomacy. What is that? You may not have heard of it. But it's the idea that even in dangerous places like Libya, like Benghazi, that there is a role for diplomacy to play. And she is going to put the fact that there was this diplomatic mission in Benghazi in that frame.

Her team also sees this as the referendum of her time as secretary of state. Her time, her experience there has been an asset. Voters will tell you that. They want to make sure that she doesn't take any incoming on that. The best case is that Hillary Clinton comes off as accomplished. She comes off as in control. She comes off as unruffled.

But keeping in mind, Wolf, this was a long time. There are a lot of facts and deep down she is frustrated by this process. She does see it as sort of this attempt at a political takedown and she's going to be trying to kind of keep that under wraps throughout this time (ph).

BLITZER: She told our own Jake Tapper the other day, she really doesn't know what to expect - to full expect during the course of these many hours of questioning.

KEILAR: That's right. She doesn't exactly know what to expect. And I think part of that is that we all don't know what to expect. If you hear Trey Gowdy talk about it, he'll say that he wants this to be a definitive and final accounting of what happened in Benghazi. He says he's been frustrated by some of these admissions by Republicans lately of the political aspect of what's going on.

[09:40:06] But are other Republicans on the committee going to follow suit? Are they not going to really get into the e-mails? I talked to one Democrat on the committee and he said they're just not going to be able to help it. We'll see if he's right or not.

BLITZER: All right, thanks very much. Don't go too far away.

We're looking at eight or more hours of questions in the same hearing room, by the way, where Hillary Clinton defended her ill-fated healthcare overhaul when she was first lady back in 1993. Today, the Benghazi questions are likely to fall into at least five key areas. Why did the U.S. maintain a diplomatic mission there to begin with? It was a known caldron of violence in the first place. Secondly, why wasn't Secretary Clinton aware of requests for more security? What was Clinton's role in discussions about a military response to the deadly attacks? Why did the U.S. keep that Benghazi post as a so-called temporary mission, not a full-time, full-on consulate, which would have warranted much greater security? And its temporary status notwithstanding, could security have been improved at the U.S. mission over there?

Let's go over to our panel to discuss what's going on.

Gloria, I don't think we can overstate potentially how significant these at least eight hours of testimony could be for Hillary Clinton and her political ambition.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Very significant for her. Very significant, I would also think, for the Republican Party and how it conducts itself during these hearings. We're told, as Brianna just pointed out, that Hillary Clinton is going to approach this in a sober and a serious way. And I think there is some sense on the Democratic side that there is a danger of the Republicans kind of devolving into a circus unless the chairman, Trey Gowdy, can kind of get control of his people. And what I think Hillary Clinton is coming there to talk about and what I think the American public wants to hear is why those four people died, how they died, how it can be prevented in the future.

The big question is, does this turn into kind of a circus about Hillary Clinton's e-mail server? And - because I think that if you - if you look at the polling, it's - it's quite divided along - along party lines about whether or not people think that matters. People do not believe - a majority do not believe Hillary Clinton did a great job in handling Benghazi. But, again, along partisan lines, whether it's relevant or not, to whether she could become president of the United States, 70 percent of Democrats say it's irrelevant, 80 percent of Republicans think it's relevant and independent voters, very important in a presidential election, are split down the middle.

BLITZER: Well, legally, Jeffrey, there are major considerations. She spent the last few days, maybe the last few weeks, with her legal advisors, David Kendall (ph) among others, Cheryl Mills, going through potentially, if she contradicts herself, says something differently today than she said the first time she testified under oath, that opens her up to some potential legal problems.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: It does. And there is an FBI investigation in a general way of the e-mail situation. So that is something that is very much, you know, top of mind for her team. Something to keep in mind. Keep in - two things that I think, you

know, from a legal perspective are interesting. David Kendall is her lawyer. Will he play an aggressive role? Will he be like Brendon Sullivan (ph), his law partner at Williams & Connolly (ph), who interjected himself when Oliver North testified in 1987 before - will he be an active presence defending his client or will Hillary Clinton look presidential and not look like she needs a lawyer.

Another thing is, in these 10 minute rounds, members of Congress are notoriously incompetent questioners. Will they actually ask questions or will they give speeches? When they only have 10 minutes, you know, most members of Congress can't even clear their throats in 10 minutes. So it's going to be an interesting thing to see if they can actually get real questions out rather than give speeches.

BLITZER: Let's not forget, Hillary Clinton herself is a lawyer, graduate of Yale Law School, practiced law in Little Rock, Arkansas, for many years. So she's experienced in these kinds of matters.

Everyone stand by.

Hillary Clinton is expected to walk into the House hearing room momentarily. We're going to have live coverage of all of this, the opening statements by the chairman, the ranking Democrat. We've been seeing Elijah Cummings up there now for the past several minutes. Stand by. Much more of our special coverage coming up right after a quick break.

[09:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. Hillary Clinton moments ago -- you see her right there, walking into the Longworth House office building up on Capitol Hill. She'll be testifying about eight hours today in the Benghazi tragedy, the terrorist attack that killed four Americans including the U.S. ambassador back in 2012.

This is a big hearing for Hillary Clinton. It's a major, major moment in her race for the White House. As well, lots of political ramifications. Let's talk about what's at stake, lots at stake to put it mildly. Amanda Carpenter is here. She's one of our CNN political commentators, former communications director for Senator Ted Cruz. And of course Paul Begala is one of our CNN political commentators; he helps run a Super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton. Longtime friend and associate of Hillary Clinton.

It's fair to say the stakes for her today are enormous. Right, Paul?

[09:50:00:00] PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Very high. Very high. There are the legal stakes, which is most important thing, right? She's going to be under oath. She's been under oath in the past. But this could be a perjury trap, right? She says, remember one thing slightly wrong. So that's the most important thing, even politically. But then politically, you know, and frankly the political polling is on her side. Our Super PAC has done a poll on this. We released it to the public -- overwhelming majority think that this is a waste of money, they think it's politically motivated. But we didn't ask it as well as CNN's poll, which said -- wait, I'm going to get it here.

"Is this for political gain?" And 72 percent of Americans say yes. And it divides, as Gloria says. But interestingly, Independents, 75. So even more than Americans overall, 75 percent of independents think that this committee is out for partisan gain. And it's because they are. I'd like to meet, by the way, the 20 percent that think they're not. I'd sell them some ocean-front property in Arizona.

BLITZER: That same CNN poll asked how has Hillary Clinton handled the Benghazi attack? 36 percent, Paul, said they were satisfied; 59 percent said they were dissatisfied. So she's got work to do today to convince the American public that she handled it appropriately when she was Secretary of STate.

Amanda, but the problems for the Republicans now, they're really on the defensive because of what Kevin McCarthy, the Republican Majority Leader in the House of Representatives, said. Look at her numbers, look at her popularity, her numbers go down as a result of this select committee on Benghazi. $4 million, almost $5 million taxpayer money spent. And the Democrats are arguing, as Kevin McCarthy says, it was done for political purposes.

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, and McCarthy rightly lost the speakership that was handed him on a silver platter because everyone was so shocked that he would say something so ignorant at the time. But the stakes are very high for everyone. I think everyone recognizes that.

And I think the most substantive discussion that could come out of this hearing is what was Hillary Clinton's policy in Libya? In the last segment, Brianna mentioned she would be willing to talk about this concept of expeditionary diplomacy. That means essentially diplomats in dangerous areas of the world, and Benghazi represents a very extreme example of that. We had an ambassador at a compound that was temporary, that did not have the security benefits of an embassy or something like that, and they were in danger. There were multiple warnings. And so Hillary Clinton should be pressed about why she felt it was so important to put him in that environment knowing how risky it was.

BLITZER: We know that the ambassador, Chris Stevens, wanted to go there. He had spent a lot of time in Benghazi. He was based at the U.S. embassy in the capital of Tripoli but he went there the day before. He thought it would be important.

All right, everyone stand by. Hillary Clinton is now there in the House Longworth office building. She's getting to walk -- ready walk -- getting ready to walk into that hearing room. She'll be grilled by the chairman, the ranking member, a whole lot of other members. We'll have live coverage coming up right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:57;02] BLITZER: Welcome back to our special coverage of the Benghazi hearing. Only moments ago, you see on the left part of your screen, Hillary Clinton arriving at the Longworth House office building. She'll be testifying for hours today on what happened on September 11, 2012, when four Americans were killed at the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

The testimony could go all the way until late this afternoon, maybe even early evening. Dana Bash is up on Capitol Hill right now. That room is quickly filling up, the Longworth House hearing room. Dana, I take it the secretary's now meeting behind closed door with the chairman, Trey Gowdy?

BASH: That's right. We are in the hallway. I'm standing right next to our camera. You probably only see a lot of police officers and security, but there's a whole line of cameras waiting for her to walk out of a room, a private room where she -- and there's Trey Gowdy right there. That's the chairman, going out.

So, he was in a room with Hillary Clinton. Apparently went in to greet her privately before he starts grilling her publicly, which is an interesting moment that we got to at least witness, the fact that he went in there. Not something that always happens when you have any kind of committee hearing, particularly this kind of public and high- profile one.

But Hillary Clinton is behind closed doors in her holding room. We have seen some of her campaign staff go in. Her lawyer, whom I know you know well from the Clinton days, David Kendall, has been in there and clearly has been prepping her and is here to be with her throughout the day of testimony. So we're all anticipating her walking right across the hall and walking into the room to sit down and begin the very, very long day of testimony.

BLITZER: And you see him talking to ranking Democrat, Elijah Cummings, sitting along his side to his left. Do we know, Dana, if she will be sworn in publicly or sworn in privately before her testimony?

BASH: We don't know the answer to that. She -- It's entirely possible that they do it privately for the sole reason that they are bending over backwards to make it look and feel apolitical, nonpolitical, and the image of her with her hand up is something that can easily be used in -- you know, in campaign commercials against her. It's sort of the quintessential image of somebody who is -- who has some questions to answer. So, we're waiting to actually find that out, and I'm wondering, I'm trying to get the answer, about whether or not that was part of the reason why Trey Gowdy went in there beforehand.

BLITZER: I'm sure that they've worked out all of these details, very sensitive details with a lot of political ramifications as well.

Stand by, Dana, I want to bring in senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta. They're watching this closely at the White House because the stakes there are pretty significant as well, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. Tand the White House has been clear on this.

[10:00:01] Officials here believe the Benghazi is a political exercise designed to damage Hillary Clinton.