After Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held her own during her Benghazi testimony with Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., on Wednesday, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., had a similar exchange with the Wisconsin Tea Party senator who accused President Obama’s administration of misleading the American public of the details from the deadly attacks on Sept. 11, 2012 in Libya.
On Thursday, Johnson continued his crusade of finding out what happened that day to the U.S. consulate, despite his concession earlier Thursday that he shouldn’t have speculated on Clinton’s emotions after telling Buzzfeed and a local Wisconsin radio show that Clinton used “emotional theatrics” to avoid answering certain questions.
During Kerry’s confirmation hearing Thursday, Johnson remained committed to confirming the preliminary reports from last September that protests in Benghazi erupted before the attacks. Johnson asked Kerry “to work with him on an ongoing basis so we can find out what actually happened” and asked Kerry to “make that commitment” to him.
Kerry replied:
Senator, in all fairness, we do know what happened. I think it is very clear. Were you at the briefing with the tapes?
Johnson: No.
Kerry: Well, there was a briefing with tapes, which we all saw, those of us who went to it, which made it crystal clear. We sat for several hours with our intel folks who described to us precisely what we were seeing. We saw all of the events unfold. We had a very complete and detailed description.
Johnson was still unsatisfied and continued to charge that the Obama administration released misleading details. “Yes, we know what happened in Benghazi now because we have the reports but what we don’t know is why we were misled.”
Earlier in their exchange, Kerry also defended Secretary Clinton and her responses to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, yet another slap to Senator Johnson.
“Senator, if you’re trying to get some daylight between me and Secretary Clinton, that’s not going to happen here today on that score. I think you’re talking past each other. I don’t think that was the question. I think that, if your question is, ‘Should the American people get the truth and does it matter?’ Hillary Clinton would say yes, and I say yes.”
Clare Kim