Clinton expected to testify on Benghazi attack in two weeks, sources say
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to testify about the terror attack in Benghazi, Libya, before the House and Senate when both chambers are back in session the week of Jan. 21, sources said Tuesday.
“My sense is, her hearing probably will take place the morning of the 22nd,” the incoming ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday. Corker said he had had “some very good conversations with her chief of staff” and that Clinton appeared “anxious to want to come up and testify on Benghazi.”
Clinton was scheduled to appear before the House and Senate Foreign Affairs panels last month but sent her deputies instead after falling ill. Republicans have accused her State Department of failing to adequate provide for security at the U.S. mission in Benghazi prior to the Sept. 11 attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
{mosads}State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed during her press briefing that Clinton is expected to appear before both chambers before the confirmation hearing for her replacement, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), takes place. Nuland said no date has been set yet, but she pointed out that the two chambers won’t both be back in before President Obama’s Jan. 21 inauguration.
“The goal on our side is we would have the secretary able to testify as she’s promised to do while she’s still sitting secretary but also have the confirmation hearing as quickly as appropriate after they come back,” she said. “The expectation is that she would be prepared to testify in both the House and the Senate, so we have to work out appropriate timing in both places.”
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