Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate in the Republican primary, said one big takeaway from Hillary Clinton's day-long Benghazi testimony was her puzzling embrace of personal friend Sidney Blumenthal as a foreign policy adviser and simultaneous dismissal of Ambassador J. Christopher Steven's requests for extra security.
"It appears that Hillary Clinton was communicating far more with Sidney Blumenthal than with Chris Stevens," Huckabee said to Breitbart. "If she had believed what Chris Stevens was telling her about the need for more security at the consulate in Benghazi, the same way she believed what Sidney Blumenthal was telling her about the politics of the Obama administration, then those four Americans might not be dead today."
Huckabee was openly mocked by Democrats at the Benghazi hearings on Thursday for his past statements regarding the September 11, 2012, attacks that left four Americans, including Stevens, dead.
But post-hearing, Huckabee doubled down on his criticisms of then-Secretary of State Clinton's handling of the compound attack, which was revealed to have been conducted by terrorists tied to al-Qaida – and not due to unrest created by a You Tube video about Muslims, as the White House administration, including Clinton, repeatedly insisted in the wake of the attack.
Republicans at the hearing focused on how Clinton's mantra seemed to differ in what she told the public about the attacks, and what she told her family, via email. And as Huckabee pointed, the hearing also revealed the difference between Clinton's treatment of Blumenthal's messaging about Benghazi, via her personal email account, and that of Stevens. She admitted during questioning Stevens did not have her personal email address, even while he made multiple requests for additional security at the compound in the lead-up to his death.
"She had plenty of time to communicate with Blumenthal and she had apparently very, very little time to communicate with Chris Stevens," Huckabee said, to Breitbart. "I think we have to conclude that it was politics first and policy second."
He went on, criticizing how Clinton made time to email her daughter the evening of the attack to express doubt about the You Tube talking point, while at the same time, told the American people a different story.
"She sent an email to her own daughter the night of the incident showing that she didn’t believe the talking point about the YouTube video," Huckabee said. "She told the Egyptians she didn’t believe it. She told the Libyans she didn’t believe it. So she privately tells her family and other heads of state that this was a planned terrorist attack, and she tells the American people that it was about a video? And she trots other American officials out to say this was about the YouTube video?"
Huckabee, whose poll numbers paint him as a lagging candidate, said just recently he's counting on a big win in Iowa and believes his campaign will soon gather steam, as WND reported.