Chris Stevens’ Sister Says Hillary Clinton Is Not to Blame for Benghazi Attack
Anne Stevens does not fault Clinton for her brother's death, which she says has been politicized.
The sister of the late Ambassador Chris Stevens — one of the four Americans who died from the September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya — said the fault does not lie with Hillary Clinton.
Anne Stevens was interviewed by The New Yorker on the same day the Select Committee released an 800-page report about the State Department’s failures in the Benghazi attack. The GOP report “severely criticizes the military, CIA and administration officials for their response as the attack unfolded, and their subsequent explanations to the American people,” The Associated Press reported.
Stevens said these reports did not offer any previously unknown information. According to MediaIte, Stevens is the spokesperson for her family and the chief of pediatrician rheumatology Seattle Children’s Hospital.
When asked who she blamed for the attack, Stevens said Clinton and former CIA Director Leon Panetta “were balancing security efforts at embassies and missions around the world. The Benghazi Mission was understaffed. We know that now. But again, Chris knew that. It wasn’t a secret to him.”
Stevens said she feels her brother’s death has “definitely” been politicized in Washington.
“Every report I read that mentions him specifically has a political bent, an accusatory bent,” Stevens said. She said that with all the topics being addressed in the 2016 election, using her brother’s death as a political point “is not appropriate.”
When asked by The New Yorker’s Robin Wright how Stevens thinks her brother Chris would feel about this election, Stevens said, “I know he had a lot of respect for Secretary Clinton. He admired her ability to intensely read the issues and understand the whole picture.”
Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has said it is “time to move on” after the report about the attacks was released. Many won’t drop the issue, however. Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that Benghazi is “another Hillary Clinton failure.”
Benghazi is just another Hillary Clinton failure. It just
never seems to work the way it's supposed to with Clinton.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2016
Read the full interview with Anne Stevens in The New Yorker here.
