Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday celebrated her successful performance in front of House Select Committee on Benghazi in remarks delivered to a friendly crowd at that Democratic National Committee Women’s Leadership Forum.
Mrs. Clinton continued to dismiss the Benghazi committee as a partisan effort and said congressional Republicans were preparing another committee “witch hunt” to investigate Planned Parenthood.
Greeted by rousing cheers and applause at the conference in Washington, Mrs. Clinton began her speech joking about the 11 hours of questioning she weathered Thursday, answering a slew of questions but not taking responsibility or shedding much new light on the 2012 terror attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
“As some of you may know, I had a pretty long day yesterday,” the former secretary of state said with a smile, drawing another burst of applause.
“But I finally got to answer some questions, something I have been pushing for for literally a year,” she said. “But as I said at the start, I wanted to rise above partisanship and reach for statesmanship and that is what I tried to do.”
The Republican-run committee delayed scheduling Mrs. Clinton’s testimony in part due to the delay in obtaining her official email, which was conduct on a private email account and not turned over to the State Department for nearly two year after she left office.
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The committee discovered Mrs. Clinton’s exclude use of a private email account that was hosted on a private server in the course of its investigation. Questions about her email setup prompted an ongoing FBI investigation into her handling of classified material that could lead to criminal charges.
Mrs. Clinton said her treatment by the Benghazi committee raised questions about a congressional probes in Planned Parenthood.
The organization has come under scrutiny after hidden-camera video showed what appeared to be Planned Parenthood executive haggling over the price of fetal organs sold for scientific research.
“After my experience yesterday I am just amazed that they are talking about setting up another special investigative committee, this time to investigate Planned Parenthood,” she said. “And I think we all know by now that is just code for a partisan witch hunt. Haven’t we seen enough of that?”
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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