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GOP senator: Benghazi movie shows ‘utter negligence’ by Clinton

by Bradford Richardson - 01/16/16 2:32 PM ET

After a private screening of the movie, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said Michael Bay’s “13 Hours,” a film depicting the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, demonstrates the “utter negligence” of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“The actions in the film highlight the utter negligence of Hillary Clinton’s State Department leading up to the Benghazi attacks,” Cotton said at a panel discussion in Washington after the screening, according to the Washington Examiner.

{mosads}“Hillary Clinton was negligent at a minimum in not ensuring that they were [granted extra security] … her conduct was grotesque,” he added.

He joked that a sequel to the film “might be called ‘Five Minutes,’ because that’s how long [President] Obama and Secretary Clinton put into their roles here.”

Although neither Clinton nor Obama is mentioned in the film, former national security advisor to President George W. Bush Elliott Abrams and former ambassador Ron Weiser shared Cotton’s assessment of the film.

“As Americans watch this, it is a reminder that Benghazi is not the only incident,” Abrams said at the panel discussion. “It is a reminder of the problem that the United States is not treated or viewed nor does act the way it did only a few years ago.”

Weiser said the film “speaks for itself.”

“13 Hours” opened in theaters less than three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, where Clinton is neck-and-neck with Democratic primary rival Bernie Sanders.

Tags Benghazi Hillary Clinton libya Tom Cotton