Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton revealed Thursday that slain U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens did not know her private email address while she was at the State Department.
Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R., Ga.) grew incredulous asking Clinton during her testimony before the Benghazi Select Committee about her relationship with Stevens, whom she has called a friend.
"You say Chris Stevens was a friend of yours," Westmoreland said. "He asked numerous times for extra protection. Now, if I had been Mr. Stevens, and I'd had a relationship with you, and I had requested 20 or more times for additional security to protect not only my life but the people that were there with me, I would have gotten in touch with you some way. I would have let you know that I was in danger. And if the situation had deteriorated to a point, I needed you to do something. Did he have your personal email?"
"Congressman, I, I do not believe that he had my personal mail," Clinton said. "He had the email, and he had the direct line to everybody that he'd worked with for years."
"But not yours," Westmoreland said.
"He had been posted with officials in the State Department," Clinton said. "They had gone through difficult, challenging, dangerous assignments together. He was in constant contact with people. Yes, he and the people working for him asked for more security. Some of those requests were approved. Others were not. We're obviously looking to learn what more we could do because it was not only about Benghazi, it was also about the embassy in Tripoli."
Full exchange:
LYNN WESTMORELAND: You got a lot of emails from Sidney Blumenthal, and you say that Mr. Blumenthal was a friend of yours, and he had your personal email address. You say Chris Stevens was a friend of yours. He asked numerous times for extra protection. Now, if I had been Mr. Stevens, and I think anybody out there, anybody watching this would agree, if I had been Mr. Stevens, and I'd had a relationship with you, and I had requested 20 or more times for additional security to protect not only my life but the people that were there with me, I would have gotten in touch with you some way. I would have let you know that I was in danger. And if the situation had deteriorated to a point, I needed you to do something. Did he have your personal email?
HILLARY CLINTON: Congressman, I, I do not believe that he had my personal mail. He had the email, and he had the direct line to everybody that he'd worked with for years.
WESTMORELAND: But not yours.
CLINTON: He had been posted with officials in the State Department. They had gone through difficult, challenging, dangerous assignments together. He was in constant contact with people. Yes, he and the people working for him asked for more security. Some of those requests were approved. Others were not. We're obviously looking to learn what more we could do, because it was not only about Benghazi, it was also about the embassy in Tripoli, and I think it's fair to say that, you know, Chris asked for what he and his people requested, because he thought that it would be helpful. But he never said to anybody in the State Department, you know what, we just can't keep doing this, we just can't stay there. He was in constant contact with, you know, people on my staff, other officials in the State Department, and, you know, I did have an opportunity to talk with him and about the substance of the policy, but with respect to security, he took those requests where they belonged. He took them to the security professionals. And I have to add, congressman, the diplomatic security professionals are among the best in the world. I would put them up against anybody, and I just cannot allow any comment to be in the record in any way criticizing or disparaging them. They have kept Americans safe in two wars and in a lot of other really terrible situations over the last many years. I trusted them with my life. You trust them with yours when you're on codels. They deserve better and they deserve all the support that the Congress can give them because they're doing a really hard job very well.
WESTMORELAND: Well, ma'am, all I can say is they missed something here and we lost four Americans.