Report: GOP senators won’t confirm Kerry until Clinton testifies on Benghazi

Report: GOP senators won’t confirm Kerry until Clinton testifies on Benghazi

December 26, 2012 | 3:07 pm



Republican senators will refuse to confirm Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as Secretary of State until the nation’s current top diplomat, Hillary Clinton, testifies about her handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack.

“The Senate is expected to take up Kerry’s nomination in early January, but multiple Republican senators have already said they won’t agree to a vote on Kerry’s nomination until Clinton testifies about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi,” The Cable’s Josh Rogin notes.

Clinton backed out of testifying at a congressional hearing last week after fainting and suffering a concussion. She was the first cabinet-level official to acknowledge that terrorists played a role in the assault on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.

“For some time, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and other groups have launched attacks and kidnappings from northern Mali into neighboring countries,” Clinton said during a United Nations meeting in New York on September 26. “Now, with a larger safe haven and increased freedom to maneuver, terrorists are seeking to extend their reach and their networks in multiple directions. And they are working with other violent extremists to undermine the democratic transitions underway in North Africa, as we tragically saw in Benghazi,” (emphasis added).

A week earlier, though, Clinton was content to have people such as the father of Tyrone Woods — the former Navy Seal killed during the attack on Benghazi — believe that an anti-Islam Youtube video was the occasion for the assault, which took place on the eleventh anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“Well, this is what Hillary did,” Mr. Woods said of his meeting with Clinton immediately following the assault. “She came over and, you know, she did the same thing, separately came over and talked with me. I gave her a hug, shook her hand, and she did not appear to be one bit sincere at all. She mentioned that thing about, ‘We’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video.’ That was the first time I had even heard about anything like that.”