New Hampshire Democratic Rep. Ann Kuster clumsily refused to answer a question on the Benghazi attacks during a recent town hall, frantically looking to the moderator for assistance instead.
A video uploaded Sunday to Youtube shows the congresswoman reading a prepared question from a constituent about whether she supports a House resolution authorizing the creation of a select committee to investigate the September 11, 2012 attacks on a Beghazi consulate, which killed Libyan ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Kuster at first nervously mumbled “I don’t have . . . It’s a Senate thing — I don’t think we have anything about that in the House.” The congresswoman had just read out the name and description of HR 36, the House resolution creating the investigative committee.
Things got weirder after a constituent called her out for dismissing “the rest of this” question:
CONSTITUENT: Can you address Benghazi?
KUSTER: [Deer in headlights look]
CONSTITUENT: What are you gonna do about Benghazi?
KUSTER: [Nervously shuffles notecards]
CONSTITUENT: Why isn’t Benghazi at the top of your issue?
KUSTER: Well, I’m certainly not here to talk about it. We’re here to talk about the Middle East.
MULTIPLE CONSTITUENTS: It is in the Middle East!
CONSTITUENT: Libya is like, right in the middle of the Middle East.
KUSTER: [Angrily flicks hair, glares at moderator]
Benghazi is in North Africa. But as part of the large strip of Arabic-speaking Islamic countries stretching from Egypt to Morocco, it’s safe to include Libya as part of the political, if not geographic, Middle East. And Kuster’s dodge was certainly more about politics than geography.
Many questions still surround what happened that night in Benghazi, Libya — including why the military was told to stand down, what dozens of CIA operatives were doing on the ground that night, and why witnesses have been subjected to monthly lie detector tests.
The White House originally said the attack was a response to an anti-Islamic Youtube video seen by only a handful of people. Once that was proven false, they had then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton call Benghazi a phony scandal — a line parroted by Democratic politicians ever since.
Kuster’s awkward last stand was finally relieved by a panicked moderator, who tried to calm the riled-up crowd.
“We don’t wanna get this — there are a lot of different ideas, a lot of different opinions here,” he said anxiously as the congresswoman fiddled with her microphone. “We’re gonna stick to the format of answering questions [unintelligible] rather than getting into a discussion that — goes on.”
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