Emails made public Thursday shed new light on the careful approach Hillary Clinton and her staff took toward discussing Islamic extremism in the days after the 2012 Benghazi attack.
The internal discussions, which were obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act, reflect the public tactics Clinton has employed when discussing more recent bouts of international terrorism perpetrated by radical Islamists.
Sidney Blumenthal, a divisive political operative who acted as an informal advisor to Clinton, encouraged the secretary of state within three days of the attack to play up the country’s friendliness to the Arab Spring that sparked the Libyan revolution in the first place.
“Keep speaking and clarifying,” Blumenthal wrote. “Once through this phase, you might clarify US policy on Arab Spring, what has been accomplished, US interests at stake, varying relations with Libya & Egypt, etc.”
Blumenthal passed on an article written by his son, Max, that deeply investigated the creation of the YouTube clip on which the Obama administration had pinned the attack.
“Did an inflammatory anti-Muslim film trailer that appeared spontaneously on YouTube prompt the attack that left four US diplomats dead, including US ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens?” the Guardian story began.
Blumenthal’s son noted later in the article that the Benghazi raid “may have been only peripherally related to the film” but argued that, “even though the deadly scene in Benghazi may not have resulted directly from the angry reaction to the Islamophobic video, the violence has helped realize the apocalyptic visions of the film’s backers.”
Clinton evidently enjoyed the article, asking an aide to print three copies for her and raving to Blumenthal that his son, who has gained notoriety for his staunch anti-Israel writing, was “a mitzvah.”
Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, flagged a Reuters clip on Sept. 15, 2012 that described Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, a Sunni religious authority, denouncing both the Sept. 11 violence and the YouTube clip that sparked some of it.
“[T]hey don’t do this often,” Abedin wrote of the Grand Mufti’s statement calling the attacks “a distortion of the Islamic religion.”
Within two days of the attack, Abedin had lined up a photo opportunity for Clinton with friendly Middle Eastern leaders.
“[T]here’s a group of young Libyan, Egyptian and Tunisian leaders who … wanted to get a picture with you today,” Abedin wrote on Sept. 13, 2012. “Very impressive group and mortified by the attacks.”
Clinton quickly agreed.
That same day, Clinton’s staff passed her a summary of an Al Jazeera interview with a diplomatic official that they called the “best interview of the day.”
In it, Rashad Hussain, the U.S. special envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, quoted Islamic verses “on non-violence, forgiveness, and not killing,” which Clinton’s aide noted “should play very well with the audience.”
The aide cited a subsequent interview that praised the State Department’s “cooperation with the Islamic work … based on mutual respect and respecting laws.”
Some of the emails made public Thursday by the conservative group had already been released by the State Department.
The records indicated Clinton reached out to the leaders or foreign ministers of England, Egypt, Israel, France, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Libya and Turkey the Saturday after the Benghazi attack in a marathon call session from her New York home.
The records also showed Clinton received a note of condolence for Benghazi from the father of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, an American soldier whose capture and subsequent rescue from Afghanistan has become the subject of fierce controversy.
Clinton instructed her aides to “prepare a response” to Bergdahl’s father.
The emails come at a time when Clinton and other Democrats are attempting to cast their Republican opponents as promoters of anti-Muslim sentiment in the wake of several terror attacks around the world. They indicate Clinton and her staff had similar concerns after the Benghazi raid that claimed the lives of four Americans.
