Just hours before Hillary Rodham Clinton was to face her biggest challenge and tragedy as US secretary of state, she asked an aide to get her a French documentary about Libya.
“Can you get us a copy of Bernard Henri-Levi’s (sic) film about Libya. I think Harvey made it and it showed at Cannes last spring,” Clinton wrote to Huma Abedin, her trusted friend and confidant, at 5:50am on Sept. 11, 2012.
Later that day, heavily armed militants stormed the US mission in eastern Benghazi, killing four US personnel in a battle that raged for hours.
The attack triggered a crisis which would roil Clinton’s campaign in 2012 White House elections and that could now threaten to overshadow her new bid to make history by being elected the US’ first female president.
The request to Abedin was among 296 e-mails released by the US Department of State on Friday — out of 30,000 that Clinton has turned over after revealing that during her tenure from 2009 to 2013 she had used a private server and e-mail address.
All the e-mails released on Friday deal with Libya and the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack.
And they offer a small, but unprecedented insight into Clinton’s personal life, her daily work at the department and how she handled the tragedy that caused a convulsion of grief in the close-knit diplomatic community.
CONDOLENCES
Many e-mails contain condolences from her staff for the deaths of ambassador Chris Stevens and the three other US personnel, as well as from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former US secretary of defense Robert Gates.
“I know it has been a hard week for you, and I wanted simply to express my sympathy and tell you I was thinking of you,” Gates wrote.
Others are more fawning, thanking the boss for her leadership, and in particular for the remarks she made at a ceremony when the bodies were brought back to the US.
In one missive, Clinton admits that on the Saturday after the attack, she overslept and missed a presidential briefing.
“I just woke up,” she wrote.
Her aide sends her a list of calls for that day starting from noon with a call to then-British foreign secretary William Hague, and packing in seven more world leaders every 15 minutes, including Netanyahu and ending at 2:30pm with then-Turkish minister of foreign affairs Ahmet Davutoglu.
The Somalian minister of foreign affairs was scheduled for 3pm “in case Dav goes long,” the aide says, referring to Turkish diplomat Davutoglu.
IMAGE CONSCIOUS
The e-mails also show concern for how Clinton’s image was holding up in ensuing political storm, with her foreign policy advisor Jake Sullivan assuring her she never referred to “spontaneous” demonstrations.
That was the description offered by then-US national security advisor Susan Rice on Sunday talk shows, which Republicans seized on as proof that the administration was covering up the true circumstances of the attack.
In October 2012, Abedin e-mailed to ask Clinton to call one of the diplomatic security officers injured in the Benghazi attack.
However, she added that someone has been putting together a collection of clothes: “[Three] nice gowns, a lot of blouses and jackets” for Clinton to try on during a visit to New York.
Toward the end of 2012, Clinton asks how the Benghazi hearings are going and apologizes to then-US deputy secretary of state Tom Nides that she will not be able to accompany him after suffering a bad fall.
“So I’ll be nursing my cracked head and cheering you on as you ‘remain calm and carry on,’” she wrote. “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger (as I have rationalized for years) so just survive and you’ll have triumphed.”
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