The mother of one of the victims of the 2012 Benghazi terror attack slammed Hillary Clinton on Wednesday for calling the criticism she faced in connection with the tragedy \u201cpolitical.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see how it was political in any way\u2014it was Hillary\u2019s baby from day one. She ordered all that stuff, and then she went to bed when [the attack] was going on,\u201d said Pat Smith, the mother of U.S. Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, who was killed along with Ambassador Christopher Stevens and Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.<\/p>\n
She spoke to Fox News after Clinton discussed Benghazi during her first live interview since the election, part of the promotion of her newly released campaign memoir \u201cWhat Happened.\u201d Clinton brought up the controversy over the Benghazi terror attack in response to a question about her likability.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake the Benghazi tragedy\u2014you know, I have one of the top Republicans Kevin McCarthy, admitting we\u2019re going to take that tragedy\u2014because, you know, we\u2019ve lost people, unfortunately going back to the Reagan administration, if you talk about recent times, in diplomatic attacks,\u201d Clinton told Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie on NBC\u2019s \u201cToday.\u201d \u201cBut boy, it was turned into a political football. And it was aimed at undermining my credibility, my record, my accomplishments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clinton’s reference to House Majority Leader McCarthy was an apparent swipe at his\u00a02015 boast that the Benghazi committee<\/a>\u00a0was hurting Clinton politically. And her mention of Reagan administration-era attacks was likely a reference to the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, in which 17 Americans were killed.<\/p>\n However, the criticism of the Obama administration after the 2012 Benghazi attack in which four Americans were killed was based on several factors. Specifically, the Clinton State Department was faulted for ignoring security concerns in the run-up to the attack, contributing to the poor defense posture at the post. The Accountability Review Board that examined the tragedy concluded there were \u201cSystemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels\u201d at the department.<\/p>\n CLINTON LAMENTS HOW BENGHAZI TRAGEDY HURT HER POLITICALLY\u00a0<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n