Fireworks: Rep. Jordan Hits Clinton with E-mails Showing She Knew Video Was Unrelated

JORDAN: “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You just gave a long answer, Madam Secretary, to Miss Sanchez about, what you heard that night, what you were doing, but nowhere in there did you mention a video. You didn’t mention a video because there was never a video inspired protest in Benghazi. There was in Cairo, but not in Benghazi. Victoria Newland, your spokesperson at the State Department, hours after the attack, said this: Benghazi has been attacked by militants. In Cairo, police have removed demonstrators. Benghazi, you got weapons and explosions, Cairo, you got spray paint and rocks. One hour before the attack in Benghazi, Chris Stevens walks a diplomat to the front gate. The U.N. ambassador didn’t report a demonstration. He didn’t report it because it never happened. An eyewitness in the command center that night on the ground said no protest, no demonstration. Two intelligence reports that day, no protest, no demonstration. Attack starts at 3:42 eastern time, ends at approximately 11:40 P.M. that night. At 4:06, an office alert goes out across the State Department. Says this: mission under attack, armed men, shots fired, explosions heard. No mention of video, no mention of a protest, no mention of a demonstration. But the best evidence is Greg Hicks [sic], the number two guy in Libya, who worked side by side with ambassador Stevens. He was asked if there had been a protest would the ambassador have reported it. Mr. Hicks’ response, absolutely. For there to have been a demonstration on Chris Stevens’ front door and him not to have reported it is unbelievable, Mr. Hicks said. He said secondly, if it had been reported, he would have been out the back door within minutes and there was a back gate. Everything points to a terrorist attack. We just heard from Mr. Pompeo about the long history of terrorist incidents, terrorist violence in the country. And yet five days later, Susan Rice goes on five TV shows and says this: 'Benghazi was a spontaneous reaction as a consequence of a video.' A statement we all know is false. Don’t take my word for it. Here’s what others have said. Rice was off the reservation. 'Off the reservation' on five networks. White House worried about the politics. Republicans didn’t make those statements. They were made by the people who worked for you in the near eastern affairs bureau, the actual experts on Libya in the State Department. So if there’s no evidence for a video inspired protest, then where did the false narrative start? Started with you, Madam Secretary. At 10:08 on the night of the attack you released this statement: 'Some have sought to justify the vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet.' At 10:08 with no evidence, at 10:08 before the attack is over, at 10:08, when Tyrone Woods and Glen Dougherty are still on the roof of the annex fighting for their lives, the official statement of the State Department blames a video. Why?”
CLINTON: “During the day on September 11th, as you did mention, congressman, there was a very large protest against our embassy in Cairo. Protesters breached the walls. They tore down the American flag, and it was of grave concern to us, because the inflammatory video had been shown on Egyptian television which has a broader reach than just inside Egypt. And if you look at what I said, I referred to the video that night in a very specific way. I said some have sought to justify the attack because of the video. I used those words deliberately, not to ascribe a motive to every attacker, but as a warning to those across the region that there was no justification for further attacks. And in fact, during the course of that week, we had many attacks that were all about the video. We had people breaching the walls of our embassies in Tunis and Khartoum, we had people thankfully not Americans dying at protests but that’s what was going on, congressman.” 
JORDAN: “I appreciate most of those attacks were after the attack on the facility in Benghazi. You mentioned Cairo. Interesting what else Miss Newland said that day. She said, if pressed, by the press, if there’s a connection between Cairo and Benghazi, she said this. There’s no connection between the two. So here’s what troubles me. Your experts knew the truth. Your spokesperson knew the truth. Greg Hicks knew the truth. But what troubles me more is I think you knew the truth. I want to show you a few things here. You are looking at an e-mail you sent to your family. Here’s what you said. At 11:00 that night, approximately one hour after you told the American people it was a video, you say to your family two officers were killed today in Benghazi by an al Qaeda-like group. You tell the American people one thing, you tell your family an entirely different story. Also, on the night of the attack, you had a call with the president of Libya. Here’s what you said to him. Ansar al Sharia is claiming responsibility. Interesting, Mr. Katala [sic] one of the guys arrested and charged actually belonged to that group. Finally, most significantly, the next day within 24 hours, you had a conversation with the Egyptian prime minister. You told him this. We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with a film. It was a planned attack, not a protest. Let me read that one more time. 'We know', not we think, not it might be, 'we know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with a film. It was a planned attack, not a protest'. State Department experts knew the truth. You knew the truth. But that’s not what the American people got. Again, the American people want to know why. Why didn’t you tell the American people exactly what you told the Egyptian prime minister?” 
CLINTON: “Well, I think if you look at the statement that I made, I clearly said that it was an attack and I also said that there were some who tried to justify it on the basis of the video, congressman, and I think –“
JORDAN: “Real quick, calling it an attack is like saying the sky’s blue. Of course it was an attack. We want to know the truth. The statement you sent out was a statement on Benghazi and you say vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material on the Internet. That’s certainly how the American people saw it.”
CLINTON: “Well, congressman, there was a lot of conflicting information that we were trying to make sense of. The situation was very fluid. It was fast-moving. There was also a claim of responsibility by Ansar al Sharia and when I talked to the Egyptian prime minister, I said that this was a claim of responsibility by Ansar al Sharia, by a group that was affiliated or at least wanted to be affiliated with al Qaeda. Sometime after that, the next day, early the next morning after that, on the 12th or 13th, they retracted their claim of responsibility. I think if you look at what all of us were trying to do, and we were in a position, congressman, of trying to make sense of a lot of incoming information and watch the way the intelligence community tried to make sense of it. So all I can say is nobody —“
JORDAN: “There was not conflicting information the day of the attack because your press secretary said if pressed, there’s no connection between Cairo and Benghazi. It was clear. You are the ones who muddied it up, not the information.”
CLINTON: “Well, there’s no connection –“
JORDAN: “Here’s what I thinks’ going on. Here’s what I thinks’ going on. Let me show you one more slide. Again, this is from Victoria Newland, your press person. She says to Jake Sullivan, [indecipherable] subject line reads this. Romney’s statement on Libya. E-mail says this is what Ben was talking about. I assume Ben is the now somewhat famous Ben Rhodes, author of the talking points memo. This e-mail’s at 10:35, 27 minutes after your 10:08 statement. 27 minutes after you have told everyone it’s a video--while Americans are still fighting because the attack’s still going on--your top people are talking politics. Seems to me that night you had three options, Secretary. You could tell the truth like you did with your family, like you did with the Libyan president, like you did with the Egyptian prime minister, tell them it was a terrorist attack. You could say you know what, we’re not quite sure. Don’t really know for sure. I don’t think the evidence is there. I think it’s all — but you could have done that. You picked the third option, the video narrative. You picked the one with no evidence and you did it because Libya was supposed to be [indecipherable] this great success story for the Obama White House and the Clinton State Department and a key campaign theme that year was GM’s alive, bin Laden’s dead, Al Qaeda’s on the run. Now you have a terrorist attack. It’s a terrorist attack in Libya and it’s just 56 days before an election. You could live with the protest about a video. That won’t hurt you. But a terrorist attack will. So you can’t be square with the American people. Tell your family it’s a terrorist attack, but not the American people. You can tell the president of Libya it’s a terrorist attack, but not the American people. And you can tell the Egyptian prime minister it’s a terrorist attack, but you can’t tell your own people the truth. Madam Secretary, Americans can live with fact that good people sometimes give their lives for this country. They don’t like it. They mourn for those families, they pray for those families, but they can live with it. What they can’t live with is when their government’s not square with them. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.”