1. Let’s start with the easy part. In the CBS interview, Rubio insisted “there was never, ever any evidence that [the Benghazi attack] had anything to do with a video.” That statement contradicts eyewitness reports. According to the
New York Times,
witnesses in Benghazi saw a militant named Ahmed Abu Khattala “directing the swarming attackers who ultimately killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. ... Abu Khattala told fellow Islamist fighters and others that the assault was retaliation for the same insulting video, according to people who heard him.”
2. The
Times also
reports that according to witnesses, “there was no peaceful demonstration against the video outside the compound before the attack. ... But
the attackers, recognized as members of a local militant group called Ansar al-Shariah, did tell bystanders that they were attacking the compound because they were angry about the video.” So the facts are more complex than Rubio lets on.
Militants, while executing the attack, used the video at least as a public pretext. Rubio’s statement—that there was never any evidence that the attack had anything to do with the video—is false.
3. Townhall.com presents video recordings of Clinton’s remarks after the attack. One recording is titled Hillary Clinton Blames Youtube Video for Benghazi Terrorist Attack. But the recording doesn’t show that. Instead, it shows Clinton addressing “the video circulating on the Internet that has led to these protests in a number of countries.” And that’s true: According to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Benghazi attack coincided with “approximately 40 protests around the globe against U.S. embassies and consulates in response to an inflammatory film.”
Another video on
Townhall.com shows Clinton
saying: “We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.” Two years ago, when Clinton testified before Congress, Republican senators acknowledged that in delivering those two sentences, she was
distinguishing the “heavy assault” in Benghazi from the protests at embassies elsewhere. The “post in Benghazi,” after all, wasn’t an embassy. Now the right is trying to conflate the two sentences.
4. Clinton did mention the video in a statement on the night of the attack. “
Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet,” she said. “There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.”
Conspiracy theorists portray this statement as a claim that the video caused the attack.
5. So,
how many times did Clinton publicly blame the Benghazi attack on the video? The full timeline of her post-attack statements, compiled by Factcheck.org, shows the answer: zero. Clinton chose her words carefully because, although some reporting suggested a connection between the video and the attack, the exact relationship wasn’t clear. “There were scores of attackers that night, almost certainly with differing motives,” she later
wrote in her autobiography. “It is inaccurate to state that every single one of them was influenced by this hateful video. It is equally inaccurate to state that none of them were.”
6. The only seriously debatable question is what Clinton said privately to the families of the Benghazi victims on Sept. 14, 2012, three days after the attack, at a ceremony to honor their loved ones
. The sister of one victim says Clinton “spoke to my family about how sad we should feel for the Libyan people because they are uneducated, and that breeds fear which breeds violence and leads to the protest.” There’s nothing in that account about a video.
