WASHINGTON (AP) – Hillary Rodham Clinton said in an interview airing Monday that she feels emboldened to run for president because of Republican criticism of her handling of the deadly 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
In an interview with ABC News, Clinton said the Benghazi inquiry from Republicans gives her a greater incentive to run for president because she considers the multiple investigations into the attacks “minor league ball” for a country of the United States’ stature. But she said she’s still undecided.
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“It’s more of a reason to run, because I do not believe our great country should be playing minor league ball. We ought to be in the majors,” Clinton said. “I view this as really apart from – even a diversion from – the hard work that the Congress should be doing about the problems facing our country and the world.”
Clinton’s book, “Hard Choices,” offers a rebuke to Republicans who have seized upon the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Republicans have accused the Obama administration of stonewalling congressional investigators and misleading the public about the nature of the attack in the weeks before the presidential election. As Clinton weighs her political future, Republicans have questioned her response to the attacks and whether she could have done more to secure the diplomatic compounds.
Multiple independent, bipartisan and Republican-led investigations have faulted the State Department for inadequate security in Benghazi, leading to four demotions. No attacker has been arrested.
Obama and Clinton allies alike have argued that there is no new information following more than a dozen public hearings and the release of 25,000 pages of documents.
In her book, Clinton calls the accusations plainly political.
“I will not be a part of a political slugfest on the backs of dead Americans. It’s just plain wrong, and it’s unworthy of our great country,” Clinton writes. “Those who insist on politicizing the tragedy will have to do so without me.”
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