To kick off the week in which she’ll be testifying before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Hillary Clinton released a video touting her cred as secretary of State.
The more than 5-minute campaign ad former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, former Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard, and retired Naval Special Warfare Officer Eric Gardiner, who is Advisor to the President at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Albright says in the video that there was “nobody better” at wielding “smart power” — soft diplomacy coupled with hard threats of force — than Clinton.
“From brokering a ceasefire in Gaza that stopped rockets from raining down on Israel, to twisting arms to build a crippling sanctions coalition that brought Iran to the negotiating table, to elevating the fight for equality for women and girls as well as the LGBT community around the world, Clinton’s work as Secretary of State not only makes her uniquely prepared to serve as our next commander-in-chief, but sheds light on the kind of leadership she would bring to the Oval Office,” Clinton’s campaign said.
The campaign said it wanted to include people “who were witness to Clinton’s work as she restored American leadership and deftly navigated a dangerous world.”
Clinton is set to testify in open session at the Benghazi hearing on Thursday. Huma Abedin testified for six hours behind closed doors last week.
Rep. Susan Brooks (R-Ind.), a member of the Benghazi committee, told Fox that they’ll be asking Clinton questions “about the hundreds of e-mails that we have received from the State Department about the security requests that had been made and about mentions about the security posture in Benghazi and in Libya.”
“There was a lot of violence going on in Libya and in Benghazi prior to these attacks… what were the procedures, what were the protocols when all of these security incidents were mentioned in e-mails.”
Brooks added that lawmakers “want to know who within the department, within the State Department, within CIA, Defense Department, what did they know about the security problems in Benghazi and in Libya? How far up in the organization did those security requests go? What was the secretary’s knowledge? What was her decision-making during all of these security incidents and all of the violence in Libya leading up to the attack?”
Clinton supporter Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) told CNN this morning that “hopefully we put it behind us as a country in terms of a political issue” after the Benghazi testimony.
Voters, Stabenow argued, “understand this is the candidate who can go the distance or everything from foreign relations to the economy to income inequality, all of the issues.”
“And what I love is that the person that is the best qualified, most experienced, has all of the right experience to walk in on day one, is a woman,” she added. “And so how great is that?”
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