claimed responsibility and at that point i did say that it was an al qaeda related. >> one says it was a preplanned attack and the other one said from your expert in libya was a well-planned attack. they could not be further apart. they could not be. that is what i'm having a hard time figuring out. do you know what else happened on september 14 quack there is another document that's kind of important. that's the same day that ben burroughs drafted his talking points memo. bullet point number number two to underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video not a broader failure of policy because we couldn't have libya, we couldn't have that fail. the same day you got jay carney

saying this was in no way a preplanned attack and the experts in libya talking greg hicks saying it was a well-planned attack and a name to talking point that gets susan rice ready for the sunday show. make sure you focus on the video not about a broader policy failure. after all we have an election coming. >> congressman i believe to this day the video played a role. i believe that the person -- there were many experts. if you look and you probably haven't had an opportunity to read the excellent report issued by the democrats but on september 13 the intelligence community issued its first thorough fully coordinated assessment of what happened in benghazi. it said we assessed the attacks on tuesday against the u.s. consulate in benghazi and the attacks began spontaneously following the protest at the u.s. embassy in cairo. extremism tied to al qaeda were

involved in the attacks. there is no contradiction. the protest is that the video, those who are affiliated with al qaeda there is no contradiction. >> a well-planned attack, no preplanned attack. how about that? jay carney said there was no preplanned attack in the experts in libya said it was a preplanned attack. >> the experts in libya were among the experts analyzing it. we went on the basis of the intelligence community and they were scrambling to get all the information that they could. and the intelligence committee assessment served as the basis for what ambassador rice said when she appeared on the sunday show and on september 18th when the video for this arrived from the security cameras that deputy cia director had testified it was not until

september 18 when the cia received the libyan government's assessment of video footage that showed the front of the facility with no sign of protesters and became clear we needed to revisit our analysis and then after they looked at the video footage and fbi reporting was from interviews of personnel on the ground in benghazi during the attack the cia changed its assessment and that was explained thoroughly. the bipartisan report issued by the house permanent select committee on intelligence which did a very thorough job congressman. >> the gentleman yields back. madam secretary i think we'll take a quick ten-minute break. two of my colleagues throughout the day of aspartame seconds. i had a third asked for 10 seconds. if she holds up to 10 seconds i will give the gentlelady from alabama 10 seconds. >> i wanted to point out the ranking lady is actually incorrect.

we have not had the opportunity to discuss with secretary clinton and how it affected her decision and it was just declassified last week. >> all right with that we will take a ten-minute break and come back. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] we will be taking your phonecalls and you can join us republicans the line to call his (202)748-8891 democrats (202)748-8920 and independents (202)748-8922. this is a ten-minute break and we have norwalk connecticut on the line. >> good morning comment good evening i should say. i am pleased to know hillary clinton has handled herself.

she handled herself like the president that she will be that many people have pointed out. whether it be mrs. parks rj gowdy moving to screening or elijah cummings having to come through to hillary's defense with the truth with his testimony. i mean it's really sad. they should spend their time focusing on trying to find the speaker of the house to run their conference, to run their caucus and to try to legitimately work together. this is the way taxpayer dollars, i don't recall nancy pelosi when she took over in 2006. beating a dead horse with what we are denoted to be true.

republicans have tried to politically hurt hillary and this is disgraceful but hillary has handled herself the way she needed to do and i'm looking forward to seeing her on the world stage. i don't think we have had a woman handle herself and be prepared and ready for the stage since margaret thatcher and i'm very happy. >> host: thanks for the call. we will be covering the jefferson-jackson dinner on saturday night and expected the democratic presidential candidates including hillary clinton so if you want to hear more on the national stage definitely join us then, saturday at 9:00 p.m. eastern. we will take you to iowa life for that. we are now taking your phonecalls. we have a caller on the republican line. gary is joining us from michigan. >> caller: yes, as a u.s.

veteran i'm very proud of the way the republicans are trying to get to the truth behind the whole benghazi situation. and everything that happened. it should be obvious to every american out there, the lady is sitting there lying and not telling the truth. i mean the democrats are sitting there like they are auditioning in case she gets to be president , vice president and as a member of her cabinet. i mean i thought this whole thing was to get to the truth than they are auditioning to see -- because they there are going to be working with her in two years >> host: gary have you been watching most of the day and is

there anything that has come out that has impressed you are and treat you about the testimony you have heard? >> caller: yes, when trey gowdy -- i mean the whole situation is she never responded i mean and then sitting there lying or not coming forward when she knows she didn't tell the truth about the video and she knew it was a terrorist attack raid when you tell your family that is is a terrorist attack and then turn around and tell the american people that you had to answer to its because of the video, something just isn't right and i mean i just wish they would get to the bottom of it. >> host: we want to get a couple more callers in. there's a ten-minute break in the benghazi special committee

hearing and so we just want to give some of your phonecalls. let's go to fence and waiting patiently in the line stacy harbor florida independent. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. again i'm going to focus on the video. apparently representative schiff and other members of the committee including hillary clinton have a very short memory. as i recall two weeks after the benghazi attack both the president and hillary clinton were on the air saying the attack was caused by a video. they incarcerated the producer of that video. i don't know if he's still in jail or not and what happened to our free speech in america? >> host: vincent in florida. a couple more calls while the benghazi committee is in the temin a break. charles calling from baltimore maryland, democrat. hi charles. >> caller: how are you doing it? i'm glad it turned in to c-span.

i'm particularly shocked at the republicans, the chairman and the last republican that spoke. first of all the chairman seems to be sneaky. i'm proud of elijah cummings for pointing out he wouldn't release the memos they wanted him to and i'm shocked that they used a 17-year-old report to try to bring down hillary. if you notice this last congressman that was trying to grill hillary kept interrupting her with senseless points. she had come forth with the truth that she knew it. they seem not to understand it when the situation might down it was a fluid situation and information was incomplete and changing daily.

they were reporting one days information on a thursday and using it as a point to try to make the secretary looked bad but all she was going by was what the intelligence committee was giving her and telling professionals for giving her. anytime the cia came back and change the report, or their assessment, it shows you that things weren't all understandable at the time it went down. another thing i've noticed, he is sweating a whole lot. he seems to be the one that is being questioned. i don't understand that. >> host: let's get a call in from washington state, a republican. go ahead linda. >> caller: hi. you know what, the former guy talked about how disgusted he was with republicans rate i'm so disgusted with the democrats up

there and hillary should win an award for best actor. she gets into the sad part. i have seen her talk so many times. i can't stand to watch on tv anymore but the point is it appear she is lying. first off when trey gowdy would question her about unsolicited e-mails from sydney she went oh they were unsolicited and then she nails or with you respond to these people coming and doing a great job and it's like it started out it was unsolicited. she didn't state that one of started out. she flat out said they were all unsolicited which was a total ide. i think you have to be really careful of watching this and detecting the lies because you can see them blatantly throughout the show. i've been watching them all

morning. i just feel like i don't feel democrats republicans whatever, all we want is the truth and the republicans had to do everything to pull all this information together. no other boards did that, no other committees to death. this committee did because of trey gowdy so he wants the truth for the american people. the state department has just dragged their feet. hillary has dragged her feet, just everything. then the democrats up there are talking today about how much it costs in 17 months. that's not because they're republicans. that's because the democratic side has been dragging their feet and not being forthright so that's my opinion. >> host: all right land at washington state. while we are taking your phonecalls you are looking inside the committee room at some of the lawmakers and other audience members are waiting for things to resume. they were going to take a

ten-minute break so we should be getting back to the hearing momentarily. in the meantime taking your phonecalls and getting your take on what happened today in the several hours long hearing starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. another caller from washington state this time the democrats line. paul is on the line from issaquah. >> caller: yes, thank you very much for your time. i truly enjoy your channel because you give a voice to the american people. my uncle is the first elected lack person -- i watch the political debate and what i want to tell the american people we are brothers and sisters under one flag. we all have faults and we have things we don't do correctly but we are perfect as a union. we have to accept each other for what we can and cannot do most of the time. hillary clinton is a political machine. she knows what she's doing. she's not going to come out and give anything that's going to let the republicans went so we are being distracted and we are

spending money we should not be spending. today i called the democrat line because i'm disappointed in the republican party. we have to get together. the only person -- >> host: poll your party is the republican party? >> caller: yes and what matters most is i'm changing my mind. i never really felt like supporting hillary clinton. she has a strong women, character integrity at least inside of her message whatever that may be whether his hierarchal or whatever. she is winning right now and trey gowdy as good as people think he is running his little campaign he is sweating the most of anybody today. >> host: let me bring up the article from "usa today" talking about what you were talking about their. the benghazi hearing chaos that helps hillary clinton. hillary clinton's testimony before a special house benghazi committee offered fodder for partisan both parties and that's

what her white house prospects are looking for. republicans and democrats jousted from the start over an effort to smear clinton campaigned for the democratic residential nomination. clinton largely left their democratic allies in the panel to give credit to the committee's work as political. taking your phonecalls to hear what you think what they are in a break in the benghazi committee ran. david's on the line from glendale arizona republican. welcome david. >> caller: hi. i would like to know why there is not a white caucus in congress and also i've watched the clintons. >> host: did you say right caucus? >> caller: a white caucus. we have a black caucus and eight -- caucus but we don't have a white caucus. i would like to know why. also i have watched clinton since they first got into

politics and they have never told the truth. it's just been a constant lie and i think most people are aware and i commend gowdy for the job is done today. i think hillary showed richer colors. thank you very much. >> host: david from arizona. a mantra mind if you want to tune and we have a number of ways for you to watch. you can watch us here in c-span3 and also listen in on c-span radio and also on line we have a number of ways you he can watch. one that has a dual stream. you you can go to war livestream at c-span.org and then also use our app. you can find that on mine as well. going to huntington beach california ron on the line for independents and others. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i am a true historical and dependent. you can see these people on camera are general or -- genuine

enemies of each other. this is the natural congressional party base government, polarization. i will let one of the founders describe what we are seeing today. in his farewell address george washington warned us the following about political parties. he said let me now take a more cooperative u.n. for you in the most solemn manner against the painful effects of the spirit of the party generally. however combinations or associations may now and then enter popular and they are likely in the force of time things to become potent engines by which cunning ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to sub birds to power the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government destroying the very engines which lifted them up. ultimate domination of one faction over another sharpened by the spirit of revenge naturally leads to party dissension which in different countries has perpetrated the most horrid in normandy's.

the common and continual mischief of the spirit of the party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of people to discourage and restrain it. >> host: ron what does this mean to you in terms of this committee and what you have been seeing today. >> what i was going to say i wrote all this down. unlike what your high school civics teacher tells you or college a political scientist tell your the media will tell you or certain any partisan politician would say the founders did not belong to the political party. in fact they warned us that a two-party system would lead to the garbage we are seeing today. >> host: got you wrong and we have a ranking member back in the room so we are waiting and watching to see when they start the hearings of the benghazi select committee and more testimony from hillary clinton as well. we get a call in from buffalo

new york, carol is on the line, a democrat. >> caller: hi i am so glad you took my call here. i'm i am listening to what they're trying to do to hillary saying that she is lying, to trying to tell the truth and there is so much blown out of proportion that they are not listening to what she's trying to say. it's like when 9/11 happened at bush knew this was happening i report. in august he knew what was going to come to us and he did nothing all these lives that died for 9/11, are we going after bush and cheney and saying you should be liable for all this and maybe push a committee to find the truth and what happened there? and for what president obama at at -- i'm surprised on this.

they are going so much after hillary because they don't want to see a woman there and they do want to see a democrat. i'm so sick of republicans who try to say democrats -- but they should look at the mirror and look themselves. >> host: thanks for the call. independent line john calling from round rock texas. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i'm wondering why we are looking into the benghazi scandalous of the e-mail scandal. it's hard to confirm that she had classified information go to her e-mail which is very illegal. i'm also wondering why there is no one looking into the bill clinton thing on the jeffrey s. kline was who was then known -- a gunshot went to the back of the head on a woman who is known as bill clinton's mistress. thanks for taking my call. >> host: let's take a look on the e-mail side of things.

i.t. firm had e-mails stored on the cloud. now in fbi's hands. let's take a look at more of that and mcclatchy d.c. as we take a look back now at some of the hillary clinton opening statements from earlier. >> i chiaro to 112 countries as secretary of state. every time i did i felt great pride and honor representing the country that i love. we need leadership at home to match our leadership abroad. leadership that puts national security ahead of politics and ideology. our nation has a long history of bipartisan cooperation on foreign-policy and national security. not that we always agree, far

from it but we do come together when it counts. secretary of state come i worked with republican chairman of the senate foreign relations committee to pass a landmark nuclear arms control treaty with russia. i worked with republican leader senator mitch mcconnell to open up myanmar to democratic change. i know it's possible to find common ground because i have done it. we should debate on the basis of fact, not fear. we should resist denigrating the patriotism or loyalty of those with whom we disagree. so i am here. despite all the previous investigations on all the talk about partisan agendas i'm here to honor those we lost and to do what i can to aid those who serve us still. my challenge to you members of this committee is the same

challenge i put myself. let's be worthy of the trust the american people have stowed upon us. they expect us to leave, to learn the right lessons, to rise above partisanship and to reach for statesmanship. that's what i try to do every day as secretary of state and that's what i hope we will all strive for here today and into the future. it's. >> host: some of hillary clinton's opening statements in on your screen to chair the committee trey gowdy just waiting for things to recommence after they take a ten-minute break. we'll take your phonecalls up until the time that they start to less get a call from margie and clayton north carolina, republican. margie, go ahead. >> caller: thanks. i want to talk about how the democrats say that it's a witchhunt and that's a little weird. i'm not calling her a witch but the person we are having a

witchhunt against a sitting right in front of them. if your husband or brother or let's say wife -- [inaudible] it would be priceless. you guys put it tweet of someone saying no one would vote gop because of this but i think my grandmother's generation a lot of them are not going to vote for hillary at this time. >> host: thanks for the call. democrats line, susan and granger indiana. >> caller: hi, thanks for taking my call. i was watching them go back and forth. the night of the attack you said about the video and the next morning you said this. i am a mother. my daughter hurt her ankle in

the volleyball game. we took her and they said x-ray. >> host: you have to go susan. it looks like hillary clinton coming back to the hearing room. we will be taking calls on any more breaks and when this wraps up if we will return to the hearing on benghazi. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> welcome back madam secretary. the chairman recognizes the gentleman from l. and i. >> madam secretary the other

side out has admonished the republicans for not having a theory and let me tell you a little bit of the theory that i have developed from my reading and research and listing today and it's this. that you initiated the policy to put the united states into libya as secretary of state in the overcame a number of obstacles within the administration to advocate for military action and you were successful in doing that. ultimately the decision was the president's azubalis but you are the prime mover. you were the one of us driving and you were even contemplating something called the clinton doctrine and you were concerned about image. you are concerned about credit which is not something that is unfamiliar to people and public life but i think something happens. in my theory is after gadhafi's death and essentially a victory

lap then i think your interest waned and i think your attention waned, and i think the e-mails that mrs. brooks put forward you had an answer that was look i got a lot of information from a lot of different places but i think he basically gave a victory lap, sort of a mission accomplished quote in october 30, 2011 "washington post." this is what you said and this is very declarative. we set into motion a policy that was on the right side of history , on the right side of our values, and the right side of our strategic interest in the region. it has all the feel of a victory lap but there was a problem. the problem madam secretary was that there were storm clouds are gathering in the storm clouds were gathering for a deteriorating security situation in benghazi and you have a lot to lose if benghazi unraveled.

if libya unraveled you have a lot to lose based on the victory lap, based on the sunday shows and based on the favorable accolades that were coming. if it went the wrong direction it would be on you and if it was stable and the right direction you were the beneficiary of that. so the question is how is it possible that these urgent requests that came in, how did they not breakthrough the very upper levels of your inner circle, people hugh are here today and people who served you. [inaudible question] of those requests from two ambassadors ambassador chris and ambassador steven said came in on june 7, july 19, august 2 and march 28 august of 2012 how is it possible that those the student breakthrough? you told us that wasn't your job basically. he said i'm not responsible but

here's my theory. i think this is what was going on. to admit a need for more security was to admit that there was a deteriorating situation and to admit the deteriorating situation didn't figure narrative of a successful foreign-policy. where did i get that ron? >> congressman, look we knew that libya's transition from the brutal dictatorship of gadhafi which basically destroyed or undermined every institution in the country would be challenging and we planned accordingly. he worked closely with the libyan people, with our allies in europe, with partners in the region to make sure that we tried to get positions to help the libyan people and yes the volatile security environment in libya complicated our efforts

but we absolutely, and i will speak for myself, i absolutely did not forget about libya after gadhafi fell. we worked closely with interim government and we offered a wide range of technical assistance. we were very much involved in helping them provide their first parliamentary election. that was quite an accomplishment. a lot of other countries that were post-conflict did not have anything like the positive elections would be a dead. in july of 2012 the transitional government handed over power to a new general national congress in august. we redo everything we could think of to help libya succeed. we tried to bolster the effectiveness of the interim government. we worked very hard to get rid of the chemical weapons, coordinating with the transition liberty authorities with the u.n. and others and by february february 2014 we had assisted in

destroying the last of gadhafi's chemical weapons. we were combating the spread of anti-aircraft shoulder fired missiles because of the danger that they pose to commercial aircraft and we were providing assistance, some of which i discussed earlier with congresswoman roby. we have humanitarian assistance. we brought people to europe and to the united states but much of what we offered despite her best efforts we have a prime minister come to washington in the spring of 2012. much of what we offered was difficult for the libyans to understand how to accept. i traveled as you know to libya and met there. i stayed in close touch with libya's leaders throughout the rest of my time as secretary.

both of my deputies went there. we talked with the libyan leadership frequently by phone from washington and communicator regularly as i have said with our team based in tripoli. although this was focused on trying to help stand up a new interim government and we were making progress on demilitarization, demobilization trying to rent a great militia fighters into something resembling a security force and on securing loose weapons. i think it's important to recognize and of course i was ultimately responsible for security and i took responsibility for what happened in benghazi. >> what does that mean you took responsibility? when you say you are responsible for something madam secretary but does that mean? do you are responsible what action would you have done differently?

what do you own as a result of this? so far i have heard since we have been together today i have heard one dismissive thing after another. it was this group, it was that group. what did you do? what do you own? >> i was telling you some of the many related issues i was working on to try to help the libyan people. >> what is your responsibility to benghazi? that's my question. >> my responsibility was to be brief and to discuss with the security experts and the policy experts whether we would have a post in benghazi and whether we would continue it, whether we would make it permanent and as i have said repeatedly throughout the day no one ever recommended closing the post in benghazi. >> no one recommended closing that you had two ambassadors that made several requests and here's basically what happened to their requests. they were torn up. >> that's just not chew

congressman. >> it didn't help them. this they weren't responded to come is that your testimony? >> many were responded to. >> you said earlier he knows where when to pull the lever so aren't you implying that his responsibility to figure out how he is supposed to be secure because chris stevens knows how to pull the levers, that's your testimony? >> ambassadors are the ones who pass on security recommendations and requests. that's true throughout the world >> what is his remedy if they are not responded to? what is the remedy as its non? >> as i testified earlier within regular e-mail contact with some of my closest advisers -- he was in regular e-mail contact and cable contact.

>> you created an environment matted secretary where the cables couldn't get through. >> that is inaccurate. cables as we have testified. >> they didn't get through to you. they didn't break into your inner circle. that was your testimony earlier. you can't have it both ways. he can sell this information came in and i was able to process it and it all started security professionals. >> congressman that is not what i'm saying. they try to clarify clarify that millions of cables come in. they are processed and sent to the appropriate offices and personnel. >> they didn't get through. they couldn't rake into the inner circle of decision-making. let me draw your attention and closing to testimony that you gave before the house foreign affairs committee in january of 2013. and he said some wonderful things about ambassador steven similar to what you said in your

opening statement today and they were words that were warm and inspirational reflecting on this bravery. i think in light of the fact it has come out since her testimony and i think in light of the things the committee has learned he's even braver than you knowledge. in january 2013 this is what he said the congress. nobody knew the dangers or the opportunities. during the first revolution than during the transition the week libyan government militias and and -- militias a bomb exploded in his hotel. he never wavered ever asked to come home never said let's shut it down and quit and go somewhere else. he understood that it was pivotal for americans to be represented that place at that time. secretary clinton i think he should have added this. chris stevens capped faith with the state department even when we broke faith with him.

he accepted my invitation to serve in benghazi even though he was denied the security he implored us to give him. i and my colleagues were distracted by other matters and opportunities and ambitions and leave breach their fundamental duty to secure its safety and that is len dority sean smith -- it is a disservice of how hard people who are given the responsibility of making these tough security decisions. >> did they keep faith with chris stevens? >> chris stevens was someone who had a commitment to our presence in libya. >> there's no question. >> we want to honor that by continuing doing what we can to

support the libyan people's transition. it's very much in my view in america's interest to continue to try to fulfill. >> the chair will now recognize the gentlelady from illinois missed duckworth. >> thank you mr. chairman. madam secretary i want to talk more about what has been done for embassy personnel security since then. my understanding is in benghazi there were some security improvements that were made. could you talk about some of those prior to the attacks as well as some of the things that perhaps you alluded to with the state's rooms and some of those things? >> there were a number of security improvements that were made to the facility. again there was an emphasis on trying to buttress the outer walls to try to create a more effective guard entrance.

there was an effort to try to make sure that the facility itself was hardened so that it could withstand attacks if that came to pass. he was in a series of decisions made by the security professionals in november of 2011. are people in benghazi said they needed to hire additional local guards. money was approved that day in december that year they asked for money to buy various. the funds were set by the end of the week. in january 2012 the regional security officer requested all personnel going to triple in benghazi for more than 30 days completed specialized foreign affairs counter threat training course which was soon implemented. also in january 2012 they asked for money for sandbag security lights chop armoring force carburetors there were probably

sent. later that month they were sent extra how much bulletproof vest and the wmd response of women in february titled a requested support for a major renovation of the walls around the complex including making the walls higher adding barbed wire. that project was completed. a march 2012 they asked to construct two extra guard positions. that was completed. in april 20 gio benitez help with technical security and buy me a special team visited to enhance security equipment and security lighting. in june 2012 following the ied incidents immediately original team was sent to enhance the perimeter and additional funding was approved for more guards. july 2012 they said that they needed a minimum of three american security officers in benghazi through july august and september. they always had three, four or five american agents overseeing the expanded libyan guards on

site. are just some of the requests of the affirmative responses congressmen that were provided specifically for benghazi. >> thank you. we know that short of people in bunkers never allowed them outside of embassy compound we are going to have some sort of a threat to our security. obviously it was not enough. what i would like to know is in light of that what efforts have been put into provide for contingency operations especially for non-potentially volatile. in aconda year. september 11 comes every year. 2016, 20 of -- 2016 is going to be an especially volatile time. talk about any difficulties you may have come across and in

coordinating with tod, intelligence agencies, others across the government. i know this is not secure and we can't talk about things that are rated secret but september 11 is coming. are we removing aircraft carriers and are we putting it it -- on a two-hour leash? are we gearing up and ready to go? what's going on in light of lessons learned in benghazi and review directed to take charge especially at your level of interagency cooperation. >> an excellent question and really at the heart of what i hope will come out of this and the prior investigations. in december 2014 assistant secretary starr from the state department testified before the select committee 25 of the 29 recommendations have been completed and a september 2013

inspector general's report noted that the arp recommendations were made in a way that was quickly taken seriously that i took charge directly of oversight for the implementation process. here are examples. more diplomatic security and personnel on the ground in our facilities today. we have increased the skills and competency for diplomatic security agents by increasing the training time in the high threat course. we have expanded the foreign affairs counter threat for so that the skills are shared by not just the diplomatic security agents by people like chris stevens and sean smith as well. we have also been working hard to up the interagency cooperation. the interagency security teams

that u.s. about earlier congresswoman, that's a continuing commitment that we are working on. i know because of this terrible tragedy dod is much more focused on what needs to be thought through with respect to planning and reaction. you know we had problems in the past with the pastor from florida. jones inciting riots and protests that resulted in the deaths of people including the u.n. and others. so we are trying to stay in close touch between the state department and dod. in that case the secretary called him and asked him please not to get involved in what he was doing because it was dangerous to our troops and our civilians. unfortunately he has a mind apparently of the song. so we are trying to have a closer coordinated planning and response effort.

with respect to your specific questions that are really within the purview of the department of defense like the deployment of certain navy vessels, air wing sound alike. i think dod is trying hard to think about how particularly in north africa and the middle east they can respond. one of the claims that was made that was proven to be unsure was that dod withheld sending air support and indeed the closest air support that would have been in any way relevant was too far away. they're trying to think about how they better deploy and station various assets so that they can have a quicker response time. i have not been involved intimately for two years, i

guess more than two years i can't speak direct but i know that this was part of the important work that was underway when i left. >> you spoke about you making personal phonecalls to ask for help from the head of local government and you spoke a lot about the power of faith commission and the trust to put into these professionals that are there. when an embassy comes under attack after this benghazi attack from this time forward to the ambassadors need to call you to ask for help from other agencies of the u.s. government or do they have the ability if there is a dod, a cia or dod force nearby, does the ambassador have to calm through or do they need to call you? how does that work? >> know when there is an example

in the benghazi attack. there was a pre-existing understanding between the diplomatic compound and the cia annex and there was no need for anybody at the compound to call washington to alert the cia annex. they immediately contacted the cia annex and they sprang into action to try to come to the assistance of our team at the compound. we are trying to have more pre-existing arrangements like that and that goes to your question. if there are assets in the region how do we plan for contingencies so that they can be immediately triggered and try to respond to? i obviously spoke to the white house. i spoke to general petraeus. i spoke to lots of other people that evening trying to get whatever help we could get.

we did get a surveillance plane above the location but it took some time to get there. >> it was on unarmed. juan, correct? >> correct, it was an unarmed uav. so we asked for everything we could get and everybody immediately tried to provide it but i think now there is more awareness that maybe we should be doing these scenarios at a time to figure out what could be done without having to reinvent it every time. >> thank you. i'm out of time. >> i thank the gentlelady from illinois and the chair would recognize the gentlelady from. >> thank you mr. secretary. i'm going to follow up on what they congresswoman from illinois is disgusting and i appreciate what you just listed with respect to the security

improvements or whatever happened with respect to benghazi but i have to ask you if you are familiar with the fact that in the wake of the 1998 bombing attacks in nairobi congress pass something referred to as secure embassy counter -- counterterrorist attack which requires a waiver. if u.s. government personnel -- or if u.s. overseas facilities do not meet the security setback specified by the pier of diplomatic security. the law specifies that only the secretary of state may sign these waivers and that requirement is not to be delegated. was a waiver issued for the temporary mission in benghazi and the cia annex after the mission compound was authorized

to december of 2012 and did 12 and did you sign that waiver madam secretary? >> i think that the cia annex, i had no responsibility for. i cannot speak to what the decisions were with respect to the cia annex. that's something i know other committees. >> that you were responsible for the temporary mission compound. >> yes of course. you put them together and want to clarify that i had no responsibility for the cia annex obviously. the compound in benghazi was neither an embassy guard consulate. those are the only two facilities for which we would obtain a formal diplomatic notification and those were the only kinds of facilities that we would have sought waivers for at the time because we were trying

to as has been testified to earlier understand whether we were going to have a permanent mission or not. that means you have a survey -- to survey available facilities and find a secure facility and the standards that are set by the interagency overseeing the security policy board are the goals we try to strive for but it is very difficult if not impossible to do that in the immediate aftermath of the conflict situation. the temporary mission in benghazi was set up tried to find out what was going on in the area to work with the cia were appropriate and to make a decision as to whether there would be a permanent facility. we could not have met the goals under the overseas security policy board nor could we have

issued a waiver because we had to set up operations in order to make the assessment as to whether or not we would have a permanent mission and whether that mission would remain open and we made extensive and constant improvements to the physical security some of which i've mentioned. >> madam secretary thank you. so it is obvious that a waiver was not signed and you have given a defense as to why a waiver was not signed and it was temporary because it was made up. it was something different. the compound had never become official. and so therefore you did not sign a waiver which when most of our people are stationed in such dangerous places, let me get into that with respect to the dangerous places. he testified libya was incapable

of providing post-nations supporting that involves protecting marriage diplomat and other foreign agents that traveled there. we didn't have u.s. military and libya and there are two options. either lead when it gets too dangerous for the state department make sure that they provide that protection. i want to just chat with you a little bit about the fact that when ambassador stevens returned there in late may of 2012 after being named the ambassador less than four months later he was killed but the number of violent attacks that occurred during that summer are off the charts. i would like you to refer to six it's a 51 page document prepared by your head security guy and libya for security, serious security incidents between

june 2011 and july 2012. 51 pages long, 230 and 35 significant security incidents, 235 -- in benghazi there were 77 attacks in one year. 64 and 2012. let me tell you is a flip through this and i'm not talking about benghazi. it's a large city about those sites of boston. i'm not talking about violent everyday robberies or burglaries i'm talking about assassination attempts and assassinations, bombings, kidnappings, attacks on the red cross. the red cross pulled out. ..

we're now over in benghazi and all of these types of bombings are happening and these security incidents are happening, there are hundreds more actually i could talk with you about but, frankly, i don't have time. i hope i painted the picture because i'm baffled. you sent chris stevens to libya and to benghazi and, granted, he never raised the flag and said, "i want out," "and granted, he never said, "shut down benghazi." and i understand and appreciate that you deferred to him, but you also, madam secretary -- we have no record of you ever talking to him, that you never talked to h >> as our ambassador. am i wrong? did you every talk to ambassador stevens when all of this was going on in the hot bed of libya? that is a yes or no question, mad madam secretary. did you every personal speak to ambassador stevens -- we don't

know the answer. did you ever personally speak to him after you swore him in in may? >> yes, i believe i did. >> when was that? >> i don't recall. i want to clarify for the record that this dockment is about all of -- document -- libya. congress woman, i appreciate, and i really do, the passion and the intensity of your feelings about this. we have diplomatic facilities in war zones. we have ambassadors that we send to places that have been bombed and attacked all the time. >> and you are their boss. >> you are right. >> and you are their leader. is that correct? are there every situations where you call them? where you bring them in? where you were personally caring and concerned and are letting

them know that? are there situations where you recall, and i would like to know what the conversation was with ambassador stevens and what month it was with ambassador stevens because there are no call logs, nothing from the opt center we have found. we have no record you had any conversations with the ambassador after you swore him in and before he died. and you were his boss. >> i was the boss of ambassadors in 270 countries. i was the boss of ambassadors in places like afghanistan, where shortly before i visited one time the embassy had been under brutal assault by the taliban for hours. i am very well aware of the dangers that are faced by our diplomats and our development professionals. there was never a recommendation from ambassador stevens or anyone else to close benghazi.

now, sitting here, in the large beautiful hearing room, it is easy to say well, there should have been. somebody should have stood up and said do that. but that was not the case. and it is a very difficult choice with respect to any of these facilities given the level of threat and instability that we confront around the world today. it is deeply, deeply distressing when any of our facilities or personal are in danger. we do, and have done, the best we can, and i think we can do better which is why i imp implemented of the recommendations we barely talked about. they were essential in improving

the situation and respond better. that is what we tried to do. i find it, you know, deeply saddening because obviously everyone who knew him, and worked with him, including libyans as i said at the beginning would have given anything to prevent this from happening. >> madam secretary, if we would have given anything, had you talked to him in july, we would have asked you to keep the security you had. he was told no. we didn't give him everything. i yield back. >> our witness may answer if she would like to. >> it is the same answer. chris stevens are an opportunity

to reach me at any time. the people who worked and were around him and with him -- they very well understood the dangers they were con fronting and they did the best and many failed. >> during today's hearing, it has been a long day. and i want to begin by apologizing for my colleagues who apparently want to write answers for you or testify for you because i think it fits in better with the narrative of what happened. i want to ask you about questions and i want to just

continue that a little bit more. you saidprie previously you had spoken and the defense department and the state department, and you also spoke directly with people on the ground at the embassy there around 7 p.m. and i can tell from the documents you asked to speak with the deputy chief of mission in tripoli. can you explain the purpose of the call and why you thought that was important? >> well, for a number of reasons they were a source of information. they had their own sources on the ground they vewere reaching out to and trying to gath er additional insight and what provoked it. but more importantly, they were in a great state of dismay and

grief. and i thought it was important to speak with our team in tripoli directly so that they knew we were trying as best as we could from so far away to help them and to help their colleagues. we also had pushed to have an additional team of security officers fly from tripoli and really the embassy in tripoli just took that on. they in fact came up with the idea and put it together and got the plane and sent more help on the way to benghazi. but it was a very personal conversation between me and those who were in our embassy. this is a place i spent a lot of time and paid a lot of attention to. as i said earlier, we had to evacuate the embassy before,

while gadhafi was still night in power. i talked to families as they were on the ferry. we tried to engage with, listen to and support our teams when they were facing these very difficult circumstances. >> now this committee has interviewed your staff that was with you that evening on the attacks. your chief of staff cheryl jails and deputy chief of staff, jake sullivan, and they said you participated in a security conference with senior officials from the intelligence committee, white house and department of defense. cheryl mills said the deputy meeting broke with protocol and surprised other attendees but you said these are our people on the ground. where else would i be? why did you think it was

important to personal participate in the meeting? >> the people in the meeting part of the operational decision making and i wanted to know from them what they were trying to do to help us. particularly, dod, also the intelligence community because at that time, as i recall, the cia annex had not come under attack yet and we were trying to get all americans out of benghazi. we were trying to provide planes for evacuation. there was a lot of detail being worked out and where wanted to be as hands-on as i could be to know number one, what all of the other agencies were doing to help us, and what we could do to try to assist them in their efforts to get to benghazi and do whatever was possible. >> were the participants

surprised by your visit? >> apparently they were. because they were not expecting me to walk into the room and sit down at the table. >> do you think your appearance on the conference conveyed to them how seriously you were taking the attacks and the response to the attack sns? >> i am sure it did. but we were sounding the alarm and reaching out for several hours by then. we were getting a positive response from everyone. >> from the state department? defense demarmepartment? >> yes, and the cia and the white house was involved in reaching out and coordinating with us. we knew people were trying to help. there was never know doubt about that. i wanted to hear first-hand about the assessments of what they could do. how were we going to evacuate the americans? and we were also still unsure of

where our ambassador was which made all of this incredibly difficult for everybody in the state department. we didn't know where he was. we didn't know whether he was alive. it was shortly after that in the evening when we found out he was not. >> your chief of staff also explained to the committee that you were concerned the night of the attacks, not only for the safety of the teams in benghazi, but also in tripoli and elsewhere. she had this quote she was very concerned and determined whatever needed to be done was done and she was worried. worried about the teams in benghazi, libya and on the ground in many places given what we saw unfold in egypt. can you explain the context of the evening and why you were concerned, not just about what

happened in benghazi, but the risk of americans elsewhere. >> that is right. i was quite concerned about tripoli because we didn't know if there was going to be coordinated attacks. we were trying to get information about who was behind what happened in benghazi. in the course of the conversations with the team in tripoli we began to explore whether they should move from where they were in the place that was operating as our embassy at the same to a more secure location. there was consideration on what to do to keep our team in tripoli safe. we were very caoncerned about te impact of the video sparking unrest attacks, violence in a wide swath of countries. it turned out that was well-founded concern as we saw the attacks and protests across the region, all the way to india

and indonesia. so there was a lot of effort being put into not only doing the immediate tasks before us in benghazi and doing whatever we needed to do to keep our people in tripoli safe, but beginning to talk through and prepare what happened elsewhere. >> i want to switch the line of questioning for a second. i have a couple minutes left. following the attacks on benghazi, but before the accountability board completed its work, you did a number of things to evaluate and improve security at overseas post. this was before the arb finished its investigation and issued their finding and recommendations. and i know you mentioned them multiple times today but some of my colleagues have amnesia about what you really accomplished. can you tell me about the steps you took to implement in the

state department before the arb completed its course. >> well, although the arb had not completed its own investigation, clearly in the aftermath of benghazi we were going our own evaluation of what happened, what we knew about the circumstances, and what we needed to do to try to get ahead of any other potential problems. one of the decisions that i made and discussed with general dempsey was how we could get more assistance from the department of defense and in particular we sent out teams to the highest threat post we had to get evaluations from those on the ground so that we would have a better idea of where there might be necessary upgrades to security that we could immediately try to act upon.

so we did begin a conversation with the department of defense which i think it is fair to say and as admiral mullen testified seize the scope of the american diplomatic presence as beyond the capacity of the defense department to be responsive. we had to look at the highest post and take the second layer and begin the process as i told and behind the curve. we had a perfect example of that in yemen. we kept the embassy open under very difficult and dangerous circumstances for a very long

time. we even moved it physically to a well defensed position and th k thankfully we have not have incidents resulting in american diplomats being killed but it was a constant challenge to us.. and there are many other examples like the one that congressman smith has raised twice. peshawar which is an incredibly dangerous high-threat post. so what we tried to do is to close, as best we could, the relationship between state and dod, so wherever dod could help us, they would be prepared to factor that in to their planning. i was very grateful for their responsiveness. >> we're grateful for yours. thank you very much. i yield back. >> gentle lady yields back. chair now recognizes the gentle

lady from alabama. >> secretary clinton, i want to follow up on questions about the night of the attack and decisions made then. you wrote in your book "hard choices" that you were directing the state department response the night of september 11th, 2012, but you also stated that you left your office on the night of the attacks and went to your home in northwest washington because you said you knew the next few days were going to be taxing and the department was going to be looking to you. i want to talk about a few things. do you have a skiff in your home? >> yes, i did. >> who else was at your home? were you alone? >> i was alone. yes. >> the whole night? >> well, yes. the whole night. >> i don't know why that's funny. did you have any in. hearn briefings? >> i don't think it is funny. did you have any other

conversations? 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 you if you were alone the whole night. >> congresswoman, you asked if i had a skiff. i had security phones. i had other equipment that kept me in touch with the state department at all times. i did not sleep all night. i was very much focused on what we were doing. >> who was at your office when you left? was cheryl mills your chief of staff still at the office when you left? >> i don't remember. i know that a lot of my staff -- >> i'm going to there through and name them. and see if you remember. >> jake sullivan? >> they were all there when i left. >> victoria newland was there? >> when i left everyone was there. >> felipe? >> i can give you a blanket answer. when i left -- >> i'm going to ask specifics. was patrick kennedy there? >> i'm sure he was. >> was philip ronas there?

>> i don't know. >> steven mall? >> i'm sure that the core team at the state department was still there. >> beth jones? >> i'm sure she was. >> bill burns and -- >> i have no specific recollection of any of the names you've given me because when i left i knew i would stay in touch and i do not know how long anybody else stayed. >> what time did you learn that sean smith had died? >> that was earlier in the evening. >> that was before you left. >> yes. >> what about ambassador stevens? >> it was before i left. >> what about his confirmation of his death, before or after you left? >> we knew that. yes. >> what about the recovery of his body? was that before or after you left? >> we got word that we had a

sighting of -- >> confirmation. >> well, i'm trying to tell you what we knew and how we found out because it was something that we were trying to determine and we had mixed signals about what we learned and it was our understanding -- and certainly by the time i left -- that he was most likely not alive. but i'm not sure exactly when we were able to confirm that because it depended upon getting firsthand information from a libyan contact. >> where were you when you learned of the second attack? >> i was at home. >> did you go back to the state department when you learned about the second attack or did you stay home? >> i stayed home. i went to the state department

early in the morning. the cia annex attack as i recall was late in the evening, early the next morning. by our time around 5:00 a.m. or so in benghazi. >> did you meet with the president that night? >> i talked with the president. i did not meet with him. >> how many times did you talk to the president? >> i talked to the president that evening, that was the only time i talked with him on the 11th. then i went over to the white house the next morning. >> so once. do you recall what time you spoke to the president? you said that evening. do you recall more specifically what time? >> i think it was late in the evening. i don't know exactly when. >> what did you discuss? >> i'm sorry, what? >> what specifically did you discuss with the president? >> well, i don't usually talk about my discussions with the president but i can tell you we talked about what had happened during the day. i thanked him for his very strong support because he made it absolutely clear that everyone was supposed to be

doing all they could particularly dod to assist us wherever possible. and i'm sure i thanked him for that. >> what did he say to you? >> again, i don't talk about the conversations i have with the president. we talked about the events of the day. his determination to do everything he could to try to help our people in benghazi. >> did you meet with secretary panetta? >> no, i did not. >> did you speak to secretary panetta? >> the next day. >> not on the 11th. >> no. >> did you talk with general dempsey? >> the next morning, i did. >> so you did not meet with him or talk with him on the 11th? >> congresswoman, it wasn't necessary. everybody was doing everything they could think of to do. it's one of the reasons i sat in on the -- >> i'm just trying to figure out if you did or you didn't. >> i'm telling you, i sat in on the meeting conversation sanchez was asking me about because i wanted to talk about the operational people and they were represented there. they were the ones who were

saering osaer i carrying out the orders that they received from the president on down. >> what about petraeus? when did you speak to him? >> i spoke to petraeus that afternoon, because i flew that we had an agreement with the cia annex and i spoke with him about an hour after finding out about the attack and after gathering information about what we thought was happening in benghazi. >> did you -- your surviving agents were evacuated to prip t tripoli the morning of the 12th. did you talk to the survivors once they arrived in tripoli? >> we did not speak to them directly. we obviously made arrangements for them to be safely evacuated, and then to be transported to a hospital facility that we thought was safe from any potential attacks. >> did you talk to him the next day? >> no. >> did you talk to him later that week?

>> no, i did not. >> did you that uk to them when they first got back to the united states? >> i did not talk to them until they had had an opportunity to be debriefed and to provide information that would help us understand what happened, help the intelligence community and help the fbi as they were trying to build their case. >> how would it have harmed the case that was -- that they were trying to build for you, secretary of state, just to check in on their well being? >> i did check on their well being. >> personally. >> well, i did personally talk with the people who were taking care of them, transporting them. >> them. the survivors. when did you talk to the survivors? >> i talked to the survivors when they came back to the united states. and one who was for many months in walter reed on the telephone. >> going back to panetta and dempsey, you have stated that they were the decision makers.

but you never spoke with them while were your people were on the ground. >> i'm sorry. >> i want to make sure this is clear. pa in etta and dempsey were the decision makers when it came to response. we've already talked about the -- what i'm trying to clarify is that they were the decision makers, your people were on the ground in harm's way and you never had a conversation with them. >> i did not need to. during the turmoil of that afternoon and into the evening, we knew the president had personally told them both in the oval office that he expected them to do everything they possibly could do. i knew that they would then turn to those officers responsible for carrying out that order. they were represented. that's why i sat in on it. remember, too, congresswoman, we had a lot of other threats coming in. we were still worried about

cairo. we -- zblr well, i understand. but you had your people on the ground that were being attacked. i want to get back to the survivors in the little time i have left. did you talk to the survivors directly at all? >> yes, i did. >> can you tell us when? >> it was kind of a rolling series of conversations. when they came back to the state department, i met with and talked with them, as you know, their names have never been made public. i don't intend to today. >> can you give me a month? >> it was for some of them it was less time than that. and for one of them, i did not -- i talked with him on the phone, i did not get to physically see him until he had been released from the hospital and that was early in 1213. >> i think, mr. chairman, there be's two messages here. i think the first message is

that -- is the message that you sent to your personnel the night of the attack that you went home. they all stayed there and you didn't go back until the next morning. i think the second mess animal that is sent that you used the fbi's inquiry as an excuse not to check in with your agents who were on the ground who survived that horrible night just to ask them how they were. i yield back. >> well, if i could respond, congresswoman, i think that again is part of a theory that you and your colleagues are attempting to weave. it was made very clear that the fbi wanted a fresh and clean opportunity to speak with the survivors which i totally understand, and in fact their investigation has led to the charging of at least one person and i hope we find all of them and bring them to justice. >> gentle lady yields back.

the gentleman from washington is recognized. >> thank you. i want to point out that at this point secretary clinton has testified here for longer than she did in the previous two testimonies on this subject combined. we've been here now for nine and a half hours, and the questions are increasingly badgering. i would even go on to say increasingly vicious. and again, we're hoping to elicit information that will help us learn what happened and learn how to prevent future attacks. it seems to me that really what the majority is doing, they simply wish to wear you down. and hopefully get you to say something that they can then later use. i just don't see the utility of that when the chairman returns, i'd be curious as to if we just plan on going on night, continuing to badger the witness, or if there is in fact and end point to this. because i don't think it is fair to the witness to have to sit there for that long and go over

intimate details. i guess we learned whether or not you had a fax machine. i guess that was useful. but did you talk to this person, did you talk to that person, was this person there, was the other person there. and let me just say, i'm very impressed by the number of answers you have and by the memory you have of all the details of this event, but i hope we will consider how much longer we're going to continue to do this. as to the last line of questioning, to imply that you didn't care about your personnel, how many countries -- how many different embassies, different consulates did you visit during your time as secretary of state? roughly. i know you don't know that off the top of your head. >> well, at least 112. i think more than that because i sometimes visited the embassy itself plus the consulate in a country that i was in. >> can you give us a flavor -- i know you went at one point to

the eastern democratic republic of the congo because i have an interest in that area which is a very dangerous place to be. can you give us a flavor for some of the places where you visited your personnel? >> well, congressman, i did go to the democratic republic of congo. i went to eastern congo because of the horrific violence there and the particularly unstable situation in that region. i obviously went to yemen and i have made many trips to afghanistan and pakistan and had the opportunity to visit our diplomats and our development experts in dangerous places. one of the places that is particularly hard now is iraq. and it was hard then.

egypt during the revolution was very challenging and there i came under giant protests against the united states, against me personally. on a visit to the consulate in alexandria, my team was pelted with tomatoes and shoes and other insults hurled at us which put a lot of pressure on the diplomatic security. i obviously went to tunis and worked hard to help support tunisia and they, as of now, seem as though they are working toward some kind of resolution. i visited beirut. i was in jordan and in turkey numerous times during the uprising against syria. so i think that it's a long list and it's, by no means, a

complete one. >> thank you. and let me just say that the line of questioning recently has been basically implying that you don't care. okay? there's no other way to interpret what we just heard. is to say, you didn't make this phone call, well, what month, what day, what time? did you really care? did you visit them three times or just two? okay. the line of questioning is implying that you don't care. and there are two things that are troubling about that. first of all, you do or you wouldn't be doing this. or you wouldn't be representing the people that you do and doing the jobs that you did. but second of all, whether or not you care has nothing to do with learning what happened in benghazi and how to solve the problem. so all the while -- i was chastised last time for claiming that the majority was trying to be partisan -- then we got a recitation of your political back and forth about how to talk about who should get credit for

libya, being chastised for that. but it is clear that they are trying to attack you personally. i really wish that we could focus on the issues instead of that. but to get into that level of questioning, i think is not helpful to this committee. it's not even helpful to the republicans for that matter. it is clear that you care. and i'll simply go back to where we've been a couple of times. tell us again how many embassies do we have in the world? >> more than 270 countries we're represented in. >> on some level, the secretary of state, secretary kerry now, you before, is responsible for all of them. >> that's right. >> and how many personnel roughly? >> 70,000, between the state department and usaid. >> you're responsible for all of them as well. >> that's true, ongressman. >> can any human on face of the planet protect every single one of them every second of every

day? >> well -- >> that's a rhetorical question. >> well, we can try. congressman, we have, as i just said, 270 consulates and embassies. we are represented in 194 countries. some of them are very friendly to us, some of them are our adversaries. but yi do want to pick up on th point you're making because i do appreciate it very much, congressman. i care very deeply about the people who serve our country. i worked with them. i knew them. i saw them in action. on my last full day as secretary of state, we were able to hold a ceremony awarding the five diplomatic security agents the highest award for heroism that the state department has to offer. we held it then because we wanted to be sure that the fifth

man could be there because he had been in the hospital for so long. and he was able to be there. i got a chance to meet their families. i got a chance all at once, not just individually, but all together to thank them and commend them for their heroism. and i'll tell you, the agent who had been in the hospital all those months, as i was leaving he called me over and he said, secretary, please do everything you can to make sure i get to go back in the field. and i told him i would. and it was one of the requests i made on the way out the door. he was determined to go back to do what he could to protect our

diplomats, to protect you when you travel. and i was so struck then, as i had been so many times before, about the quality and the integrity and the courage of those americans who serve us, whether in uniform or out. i care very deeply about each and every one of them. >> thank you. one other point to make. do you happen to know where the cia director, general petraeus, was when the second attack happened on the cia and where he went? >> no, i do not. i don't know where he was when i reached him and spoke with him. >> he was home operating out of a skiff. and after the attack he continued to operate out of that skiff. which again is why this would be a far more productive investigation if we actually had

the cia director and dod instead of trying to pick apart every single solitary thing you've said or did during the course of this -- sometimes even going before and after that. if we actually were trying to get to the truth of this, we would have a broader array of people to talk to so that we could get there instead of picking you apart and every, every conceivable turn. we've gone back and forth. i just want to make one other point. congressman jordan, i like you, i have a great deal of respect for you, but this whole going back twice now to the "some" have implied that this was, because of a video, somehow you just substitute the word "some" for "i" and think there's no difference whatsoever in that sentence and that's mind boggling. to badger over and over and over again. why did you say it was because of the video? well, i didn't. why did you say it was because of the video? well, i didn't. why did you say it was because

of the video? i guess this could go on for another six or seven hours but i think we all understand the english language. when you say ""some" have implied, that means -- i guess that means that some have implied. some others have implied. so, you know, it's just -- very frustrating. i served on the armed services committee with matt thornberry, the chairman of that committee and we disagree about a heck of a lot but we have great arguments in that committee. but it never, ever comes close to descending to this level. congress can in fact function. house armed services committee, under matt thornberry's leadership now and before limb and all the members of that committee they aggressively question administrative witnesses. i've seen it. but there is always an element of respect for the fact that we are all doing a very difficult job.

you know? anyone across this dais who's been in a tough campaign knows exactly what it's like to have every single thing you do, every look that is on your face, everything that you wear picked apart. it's not helpful. it's not helpful to the american public and it's not helpful to the political process and it is damn legislature not helpful to the people who died in benghazi. or to their families. so i hope we can do better and i hope that we can be done with the repetitive badgering after nine and a half hours. and i thank you for putting up with it for that long and for your service. >> gentleman yields back. chairman now recognizes the gentleman from ohio, mr. jordan. >> secretary clinton, to get to the truth about benghazi we need the complete report record. your e-mails are part of the record and we believe the record might be incomplete, in part because your version of events surrounding your e-mail situation keeps changing. last month on september 20th you

said, "i'm being as transparent as possible, more transparent than anybody else ever has been." you didn't say more transparent than anybody. you said more transparent than anybody else ever. now, my definition of transparency includes being honest and straightforward and being honest and straightforward right from the start, right from the get-go. on march 10th you said this -- you provided all work related e-mails erring on the side of anything that might be a federal record. in september you revised that statement, and you said mr. blumenthal had some e-mails that you didn't. of course the revised statement was after we interviewed mr. blumenthal about benghazi and found out that we didn't receive from you and the state department the same information we received from him.

in march you said it was your practice to e-mail government officials on their dotgov accounts. later you said there was a fraction of e-mails with government information sent to -- >> i'm sorry, what does this have to do with what happened in benghazi? when are we going to get there? >> the gentleman is not recognized. the gentleman from ohio controls the time. >> this is -- and it has everything to do because we want the record so we can get to the truth and maybe if the gentleman from washington would have shown up for more than just one hour of one interview he might know more about the situation as well and the lack of getting the record. of course the second statement revised statement was after this committee had contacted three people asking for their personal accounts which of course you knew we would get their e-mails. in that first statement in march was not accurate. in march you said no classified

information was sent or received on your personal accounts. you later revised your statement and said no information marked classified was sent or received on your personal account. once again your revised statement was after the inspector general for the intelligence community had examined your e-mails and determined that, yes, some indeed were classified. secretary clinton, seems like there's a pattern, pattern of changing your story. march you say one thing, the truth comes out, weeks and months later, you say something else. that's not being the most transparent person ever. that's not even being transparent. so if your story about your e-mails keeps changing, then how can we accept your statement

that you've turned over all work related e-mails and all e-mails about libya? >> well, congressman, i have said repeatedly that i take responsibility for my use of personal e-mails. i've said it was a mistake. i've said that it was allowed but it was not a good choice. when i got to the department, we were faced with a global financial crisis, major troop decisions on afghanistan, the imperative to rebuild our alliances in europe, asia and ongoing war if iraq and so much else. e-mail was not my primary means of communication. as i have said earlier. i did not have a computer on my desk. i've described how i did work in meetings, secure and unsecure phone calls, reviewing many, many pages of materials every day, attending a great deal of meetings and i provided the

department, which has been providing you with all of my work-related e-mails, all that i had. approximately 55,000 pages and they are being publicly released. >> i appreciate that. let's get into that. there were 62,000 e-mails, total e-mails, on your system. you have stated that you used a multi-step process to determine which ones were private, which ones were public, which ones belonged to you and your family and which ones belonged to the taxpayer. who oversaw this multi-step process in making that determination which ones we might get and which ones were personal? >> that was overseen by my attorneys and they conducted a rigorous review of my e-mails and -- >> these are the folks sitting behind you there, mr. kendall, miss mills -- >> yes, that's right. >> you said rigorous. what does that mean? >> it means that they were asked to provide anything that could

be possibly construed as work related. in fact, in my opinion -- and that's been confirmed by both the state department -- >> i'm asking how it was done. did someone physically look at the 62,000 e-mails or did you use search terms, date parameters? i want to know the specifics. >> they did all of that and i did not look over their shoulders because i thought it was appropriate for them to conduct that search and they did. >> were you provided -- can you answer today what were the search terms? >> the search terms were everything you could imagine that might be related to anything but they also went through every single e-mail. >> that's not answering the question. search terms means terms. what were the date parameters? >> well, congressman, i asked my attorneys to oversee the process. i did not look over their shoulder. i did not dictate how they would do it. i did not ask what they were

doing and how they made -- >> so you don't know? you don't know what terms they used to determine which ones were your e-mails and whip ones the state department got and therefore we might get? >> the state department had between 90% and 95% of all the ones that were work related. they were already on the system. >> i'm not asking about those. i'm asking about the 62,000 that were exclusively on your system. >> 90% to 95% of all work related e-mails were already in the state department's system. >> we know the national archive has said 1,250 were clearly personal. no way you should have sent them to the state department. then we also know that 15 you missed because we got those from mr. bolumenthal when he came fo his deposition. you missed 50, then you gave us 1,250 you never should have turned over. you err on both sides. if you've made a mistakes both ways, you might have made more mistakes. we don't know. >> well, first of all, you had

nine hours with one of my attorneys. since i think the democrats just finally released -- >> i specifically asked miss mills. i asked her about this and she gave me basically the same kind of answer you're giving me. >> she'll be happy to supplement the record. >> she's not on the witness stand today. you are and i'm ask something you. >> i asked my attorneys to do it. i thought that was the appropriate way to proceed. >> let me do one other statement. i hope we'll know the terms. i think the american people would like to know what terms you used so that we could get all information on libya and find out what happened where these four americans gave their lives. in march you also said this your server was physically located on your property which is protected by the secret service. i'm having a hard time figuring this out because this story's been all over the place. there was one server on your property in new york and a second server hosted by a coll company housed in new jersey. is that right? two servers?

>> no. there was -- there was a server -- >> just one? >> -- that was already being used by my husband's team. an existing system in our home that i used, and then later again my husband's office decided that they wanted to change their arrangements and that's when they contracted with the company in coll. >> so there's only one server? is that what you're telling me and it is the one server that the fbi has? >> the fbi has the server that was used during the tenure of my state department service. >> in your statement you said which was protected by the secret service. why did you mention the secret service? could a secret service agent standing at the back door offy you are house protect someone in russia or china from hacking into your system? why did you mention the secret service agent? >> how the of just an abundance

of being transparent. >> transparent. what's the relevance to protecting from classified information? >> there was nothing marked classified on my e-mails either sent or received. >> you used the write term there. "marked." that's a revise the statement there. >> congressman, there was a lot of confusion because many americans have no idea how the classification process worked. and therefore i wanted to make it clear that there is a system within our government, certainly within the state department, where materials that is thought to be classified is marked such so that people have the opportunity to know how they are supposed to be handling those materials and that's why it became clearer, i believe, to say that nothing was marked classified at the time i sent or received it. >> all i know that's different what you said in march. i got one last question.

the fbi's got your server doing a forensic review of your server. they may -- they may -- recover e-mails that you deleted from your system. so, i didn't say this, you said it. you just said it a said it a li too, transparency. you said you were more transparent than anybody else ever. so i'm going to ask you one other simple question. if the fbi finds some of these e-mails that might be deleted as they're reviewing you're server, would you agree to allow a neutral third party, like a retired federal judge, to review any e-mails deleted to determine if any of them are relevant to our investigation? >> congressman, as you point out, there is a security inquiry being conducted by the department of justice, and i trust that they will do whatever is appropriate to reach their conclusions. >> would you, as the most transparent person ever, would you commit to saying whatever they find, i want a retired federal judge to evaluate that and look and see if we need some

of that information to get to the truth? >> i have been releasing my e-mails to the public. that is transparency, and as i stand by my statement, so far as i know in the modern era, i am the only government official who has ever done that. >> thank you. >> the gentleman's time has expired. the chair will now recognize the gentleman from georgia, mr. westmoreland. >> thank you. so far today i've said good morning, good afternoon and good evening. >> after serving us breakfast, congressman? >> let's go ahead and say good night. i might be the only person on this side that doesn't really care about your personal e-mail because i know you said -- i think you said colin powell had one. the thing that bothers me is it's a personal server. i think that's the difference because mr. powell's e-mails all went through the state department server, so just to clarify it, i think the problem

is that you had full control of your e-mails because they were on a private server and not the government server. the other thing i would like to say is to ms. duckworth. if you would read the testimony of the number of diplomat security agents that served in benghazi, most of them were temporary duty of 45-60 day people that served. if you'll read that, i think you'll find that a lot of these things that the secretary said as far as enhancements was paid for by petty cash out of their own money, and not really fulfilled or completed. the other thing i want to ask you, madam secretary -- >> will the gentleman yield for

just 20 seconds? >> yeah. >> i think that's why it behooves us as members of congress to increase a security budget for the state department. they routinely get less than they need, and i think that americans in general would not begrudge more money for security to safeguard our diplomats. but i agree with you the report does say that. >> reclaiming my time, there was $20 million that she was going to send to libya for their security upgrades. you mentioned the sixth man, that you had to wait on the sixth man -- >> the fifth man, i'm sorry. >> i was going to say there must have been somebody hiding in the closet or something that we didn't know about. you also said in one of the last things that the state department sent more security from tripoli to benghazi during the attack? >> uh-huh. >> there was not a state department person on that plane. there were four grs agents and two tdy spooisdod people and an

interpreter. >> that's exactly right, and that's why the cooperation and coordination that i've been talking about with congress -- >> with all the information we've got, mr. glenn dougherty is the one that said, we are going down to help our brothers. and he got permission from the chief of station to go down there, and he took three other grs agents, and then he got the two d.o.d. guys that wanted to go, volunteered to go, and they took their interpreter, they chartered the plane and they went down there. it was not a state department deal, and, in fact, if you want to know the truth, the only option that the state department had was the fess team, as you

and i talked about before. you mentioned that it was for rebuilding, and i've got the state department thing here about the fess, and i would read it but it's going to take up too much of my time. but there's not anything in -- it doesn't say anything about rebuilding anything. it says it's for crisis management expertise, time-sensitive nfrgs, planning for contingency operations, hostage negotiating expertise, which we we knew at one time the ambassador may have been kidnapped, reached back to washington, d.c. agencies and specialized communications capabilities. now, that's what it says on the state department website. and, you know, that would have been the one thing that you could have done to get people on the way over there to help those

folks that were still in an ongoing battle that was ready to go, sitting there, but you know what? that plane never got out of the hangar. those people never got assembled, and we've got a chain of e-mails that the first recommendation came back is the fess from your own people, then the fbi told your employees that the best way to handle the situation was to send the fess team, and that was the way it had always been done. so did you make the decision not to send the fes team? >> congressman, first let me say that it's important to recognize that our deputy chief of mission, greg hicks, was fully engaged in helping to put together the team that flew from tripoli to benghazi, and we were

very grateful that the cia station chief and his colleagues were behind that, and we were, you know, very appreciative. they, as you know, didn't get there in time because the attack on the compound was very swift. it was over in less than an hour, but they did help eventually to evacuate, and it was just an additional tragedy that mr. dougherty lost his life in attempting to stave off the attack on the cia annex. with regard to the fes recommendation, everything you read was no longer applicable to our compound in benghazi. unlike the fes team responding in nairobi where we were going to have an ongoing embassy presence, that was our embassy, the fes team was very much involved in helping to stand up

the communications and literally begin to get the embassy functioning again despite the fact that americans in maand ma the locally employed staff had been murdered in the terrorist attack. so it was our judgment that the fes team was not needed, was not appropriate for benghazi. >> but you really didn't know what was going on at that point. when you could have pulled the trigger, you didn't. >> we knew from the reports we were getting back from our diplomatic security officers, that they had had to abandon the facility, that it had been set on fire. and it was -- they were forced to take refuge with our cia colleagues at the cia annex. and remember, the fes team is not an armed reaction force. that is not what a fes team does. >> ma'am, i know that. >> so we had armed

reinforcements coming from tripoli -- >> but that was the only tool that you had to get people over there yourself. not the d.o.d. -- >> i'm sorry, congressman, look -- >> evidently it has served its purpose from being put in in a different place as it is responded to. i want to talk to you a little bit about your e-mails, and that is that i think you said it was october that you received a letter that asked you and former secretary of states to present all their e-mails; is that correct? >> that's my memory, yes. >> okay. now, in august, the state department met with your attorneys to talk about the lack of the e-mails that they had. did you know that? >> i didn't at the time, no. >> you didn't know that they

were meeting -- that the state department was meeting with your attorneys? >> not at that time, and as you also recall, the state department was beginning to turn over to this committee my e-mails because they had between 90 and 95% of all my work-related e-mails in the state department system. >> but ma'am, they met with your attorney, and your attorney they met with happened to be cheryl mills, which was your chief of staff. >> that's correct. that's correct. >> now, is that weird that your attorney was your chief of staff so that attorney/client privilege may have kicked in there somewhere? >> she was my counsel before she was my chief of staff. she became my counsel again after she was my chief of staff. >> hmm. well, i know that when the e-mail went out that night, it called everybody under secretary, director, spokesman, and it said miss mills was counselor. it didn't say chief of staff. and that was the night of the attack.