11 Benghazi takeaways: One for each hour
Oct-23-2015

The House Benghazi committee took its best swings at Hillary Clinton in a day-long hearing Thursday -- but the former secretary of state remained mostly calm throughout the hearing, save for a few animated moments in which she struggled to mask her contempt for her Republican inquisitors.

The panel's seven Republicans tried to prove Clinton ignored U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens' requests for additional security before the September 11, 2012, attacks during which Stevens and three other Americans were killed.

But Clinton -- seeking an October trifecta after delivering a strong performance in the first Democratic presidential debate last week and then watching Vice President Joe Biden decide to sit out the race, bolstering her chances at the party's nomination -- gave them little new fodder.

Here are 11 takeaways from the hearing, one for every hour it lasted.

1. A calm and collected Clinton.

There would be no moment of exasperation like the one Clinton had made at a Benghazi hearing two years ago, when she asked of the attackers' motives: "What difference, at this point, does it make?"

Clinton spoke slowly in a measured tone -- careful to keep any anger or frustration in check even as Republicans attacked her.

She even tugged at the heartstrings of those who were watching the hearing on television, saying that insinuations that she deliberately blocked requests for increased security are "very personally painful."

"I would imagine I've thought more about what happened than all of you put together. I've lost more sleep than all of you put together," Clinton said.

2. That private server.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, pushed Clinton hard over her use of a private email server -- mocking her as "the most transparent person ever."

He demanded to know the search terms her attorneys used to sort through which emails were work-related and therefore should be turned over to the State Department and which were personal.

"You might have made more mistakes -- we don't know," Jordan said.

Clinton appeared a bit thrown, unable to answer questions about how, specifically, her lawyers combed through her emails.

"I have been releasing my emails to the public," she said, a reference to the State Department's court-ordered release of her work emails.

3. In pursuit of a 'gotcha' moment?

The hearing started at 10 a.m., and Jordan's line of questioning didn't begin until 7:45 p.m. If Republicans were hoping Clinton would be worn down, it didn't happen. But they did manage to push the portion about Clinton's private server into prime-time television. It was a risk, as some news outlets -- like Fox News -- had already cut away from the hearing.

The email questions did push Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings over the edge, though, as he lambasted Republicans for trying to "badger you into a gotcha moment."

"We're better than that. We are so much better. We're a better country," an impassioned Cummings said to Clinton. "And we are so much better than using taxpayer dollars to try to destroy a campaign."

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