Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has invited the mother of a State Department employee killed in the 2012 Benghazi attacks to attend Wednesday’s final presidential debate of 2016.
Pat Smith is a vocal critic of Hillary Clinton who blames the former secretary of State for her son Sean’s death during the attacks on the U.S. compound. She told Yahoo News on Monday that the Trump campaign invited her, and she believes she will be in the “front row” of the debate in Las Vegas.
{mosads}The Trump campaign confirmed the invitation to Yahoo with a statement from Michael Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general and Trump adviser who said the campaign hopes Clinton will adequately answer why four Americans died in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.
Smith spoke at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this summer, where she said, “I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son” and accused the Democratic presidential nominee of pointing the finger at an anti-Islamic internet video as the cause of the attacks.
Accounts from the attack show that Clinton and other U.S. government officials initially discussed the video’s possible role but soon learned the attack on the Benghazi compound was coordinated.
“I want to look in Hillary’s eyes and have her lie to me again,” Smith told Yahoo about confronting Clinton on the cause of her son’s death.
Smith wouldn’t be the first Trump debate guest meant to create an uncomfortable moment for Clinton. Trump invited three women who accused Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, of sexual harassment or rape to the second presidential debate of 2016, along with a woman whose accused rapist was defended by Hillary Clinton while she worked as a lawyer.
The Washington Post reported that top campaign aides had attempted to force Bill Clinton into confronting the women by seating them in the Trump family’s VIP section, but the Commission on Presidential Debates blocked that plan.