Hillary Clinton avoided major damage to her presidential campaign during a nearly 11-hour congressional hearing Thursday dominated by Republican criticism of her response to the Benghazi attacks.
Bitter
political undercurrents festered all day during a contentious showdown
that turned into a political endurance test. After a day-long grilling
on the details of the attack and how Clinton handled it, the former
secretary of state was forced to defend her use of a private email
account while in office from a flurry of late evening attacks by GOP
lawmakers.
She also came under testy
cross-examination over the extent to which she has taken responsibility
for the deaths of the Americans in the September 11, 2012, attacks and
her contact with U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, one of the
victims, after sending him to the North African country.
"I
came here because I said I would. And I've done everything I know to
do, as have the people with whom I worked, to try to answer your
questions. I cannot do any more than that," Clinton said towards the end
of the grueling day -- before later breaking into a coughing fit and
taking a throat lozenge to ease her failing voice.
The
performance, coming one day after Vice President Joe Biden's decision
not to seek the presidency and a week after a strong showing at the
Democratic debate, could solidify Clinton's standing as the prohibitive
favorite to win her party's presidential nomination.
The
morning after the hearing, Clinton HQ was "ecstatic," according to one
source, a Clinton campaign aide who added "that was a president sitting
there."
While the hearing did not
appear to include any major new revelations on what happened In Benghazi
or Washington on the night of the attack, it did offer an opportunity
for Republicans to probe what they say are still unanswered questions
about the tragedy.
And so deep is the
partisan divide over the attack that the exhaustive hearing is unlikely
to have changed many minds. Republicans are sure to still view Clinton
as resistant to scrutiny and to blame her for security lapses in
Benghazi. Democrats are sure to continue to see the hearing as a witch
hunt designed to wound the Democratic front-runner's 2016 campaign.
One
Republican, Rep. Peter Roskam of Illinois, grew increasingly frustrated
about Clinton's refusal to provide any new answers on the attack.
"I
have heard one dismissive thing after another. What did you do? What
did you own?" Roskam asked, his patience fraying over Clinton's repeated
statements that though she accepted responsibility for what happened in
Benghazi, decisions about security arrangements were left to U.S.
envoys on the ground and security professionals in the State Department.
Roskam
ripped a piece of paper in two in a theatrical gesture meant to support
his claim that requests for security from Stevens were denied.
"You
laid this on Chris Stevens, didn't you? They didn't get through to you.
They didn't get through to your inner circle," Roskam charged.
One
of the most dramatic moments of the hearing came when Clinton was asked
about her contact with Stevens. She acknowledged that she couldn't
recall having talked to him after having sworn him in as ambassador,
though she believed they had spoken.
Despite
the day's intensity, Clinton appeared cool and in command for much of
the hearing. But as the day wore on, she seemed to be increasingly
impatient with the Republican line of questioning and with the constant
interruptions from the GOP members on the panel.
In
her most emotive testimony, Clinton sought to defang the GOP attacks by
arguing that she agonized over the deaths of four Americans in Libya
more than anyone else on the panel.
"I
would imagine I have thought more about what happened than all of you
put together," she said. "I have lost more sleep than all of you put
together. I have been wracking my brain about what more could have been
done or should have been done."
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