Hillary Clinton Being Grilled on Capitol Hill in Benghazi Hearing

On Thursday, Hillary Clinton confronted critics from the Republican Party on the House Benghazi committee in the inquiry into the attacks that in 2012 killed four Americans.

Testifying in the cavernous and ornate assembly room, which is home to the Ways and Means Committee in the House, Clinton hailed the memory of Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and the three other Americans who died at the diplomatic mission of the U.S. in Benghazi and once again took the responsibility for deadly attacks.

However, the presidential candidate from the Democratic Party said that as the secretary of state she had not personally approved or denied the request for additional security for that facility where they had been based.

She also insisted that the U.S. must not back step back from diplomacy due to the incident.

Clinton’s comments came after an aggressive opening statement that Trey Gowdy a Republican in the House from South Carolina and the committee’s chairman, made assailing the former secretary of state for failing in her duty to safeguard the lives of Americans.

Gowdy demanded to know why many requests had been made for additional security personnel and equipment that had been denied by Washington.

While he spoke, Clinton could be seen with thinly veiled disgust written all over her face.

The opening statement by Clinton was a mixture of defense of diplomacy and the inherent risks it holds, while expressions of outrage as to why the investigation of the committee had been left to Elijah Cummings a member of the House and a Democrat from Maryland.

Cummings said that the investigation had been a sham that was aimed at attempting to destroy the presidential ambitions of Clinton.

Cummings said it was time that Republicans ended the fishing expeditions that were funded by taxpayers. He called for what he said was a shift from politics to real policy in this inquiry about the attacks in Benghazi.

Gowdy criticized Clinton as well for the use of her private server for emails to conduct her State Department official business.