Clinton laughs when @RepMarthaRoby asks if she was home alone all night during #Benghazi https://t.co/Yz04hlSwH7 https://t.co/FhhzIPAaoj
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 22, 2015
WASHINGTON — During the marathon Select Committee testimony and questioning of Hillary Clinton Thursday a particularly tense moment of questioning from Alabama Congresswoman Martha Roby was interrupted by a bout of laughter from the presidential candidate.
“Were (at home) you alone?” Roby asked Clinton.
“I was alone,” Clinton responded.
“The whole night?” Roby followed up.
“Well, yes, the whole night,” Clinton said, laughing.
Roby didn’t find the situation amusing.
“I don’t know why that’s funny,” Roby continued. “Did you have any in-person briefings? I don’t find it funny at all.”
Clinton continued to chuckle, calling it a “note of levity at 7:15” after the long day of testimony.
“The reason I say it’s not funny is because it went well into the night when our folks on the ground were still in danger, so I don’t think it’s funny to ask if you’re alone the whole night,” Roby shot back.
The interchange wasn’t the only tense moment between Roby and Clinton during the hearing.
During the first round of questioning Roby presented emails from Clinton’s staff at the State Department that she says don’t match up with what Clinton testified.
“Also the secretary asked last week if we still have a presence in Benghazi,” read the email Roby presented. “I think she would be upset to hear ‘yes, we do.’ But because we don’t have enough security, they are on lockdown.”
Clinton said among the reasons Americans were in Libya was to slow the proliferation of weapons, but the State Department faced Libyans who said they “did not really feel that they could welcome a peacekeeping mission.”
Roby interrupted saying, “If I may, I hear what you’re saying but this email says something very, very different.”
“I can’t speak to that,” Clinton shot back. “I can just tell you what I was doing and I was doing a lot.”
“Sure, but this was your staff and it has to make me wonder if they had this conversation with you, why they would make it up,” Roby said.
The first round of questioning alternated between Republicans questioning Clinton and Democrats defending her, attempting to turn the hearing into an indictment of GOP intentions.
Congresswoman @RepMarthaRoby was not impressed with @HillaryClinton's response… https://t.co/UbyqQ1deMO
— Elizabeth BeShears (@LizTBeShears) October 23, 2015
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