After hours of questioning at Thursday's House Select Committee on Benghazi hearing, Hillary Clinton decided to joke about the additional security requested from Ambassador Chris Stevens, which the State Department denied before the fateful terrorist attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.
The former secretary of state applauded Stevens' frugality and "entrepreneurial spirit" for attempting to buy more security tools on the cheap. At the time the British embassy in Libya was closing its doors due to the increasingly unstable situation in the country, the British were having a "fire sale" of all of their equipment. Stevens sent in an email that he would like to pick up a few items from the embassy, including barricades.
"Well, I think that showed their entrepreneurial spirit, congresswoman, and I applaud them for it," Clinton said.
Rep. Susan Brooks (R., Ind.) said that Stevens did not feel the compound had received enough physical security, and this email may have been an attempt to secure the facility for himself and all other State employees.
"One of the great attributes Chris Stevens had was a great sense of humor and I just see him smiling as he is typing this because it is clearly in response to the email down below picking up ‘fire sale’ items from the Brits," Clinton said.
Clinton repeatedly defended her role in the State Department's decision not to provide more security personnel or resources to help protect the compound, which had faced an increase in both threats and legitimate attacks in 2012. She also defended the department's position to keep the embassy open, despite many others closing.