US

Benghazi YouTube Filmmaker Lives Quiet Life In L.A. Homeless Shelter

Kerry Picket Political Reporter
Font Size:

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the filmmaker whose YouTube movie was initially blamed for the Benghazi attack, told The Daily Caller he has little to say about the Benghazi Select Committee hearings where Hillary Clinton testified almost two weeks ago.

“The movie had nothing to do with the people getting killed — right? I’m out,” he declared, implying he had nothing else to say about the matter since he was released from prison.

Following the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, then-Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, along with the rest of the administration, blamed a video clip from an online YouTube film titled “The Innocence of Muslims,” for inciting the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.

Nakoula — who was taken into custody days after the attack and later arrested and convicted of fraud — produced the film, which mocked the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was sentenced to a year in federal prison and four years of supervised release.

Nakoula, an Egyptian born Coptic Christian, is presently on supervised probation in Los Angeles. He lives a quiet life at a homeless shelter provided by the First Southern Baptist Church. He earns $300.00 a month working part time at a pizza parlor, a job he has had for one year.

“I’m a very poor person. I’m a homeless person. I like to keep my mouth shut. I don’t like to go to jail again. I like to stay with people and be quiet and keep a low profile.”

“I’m working part time in the church and helping the homeless, because I live with them.” According to Nakoula some in the shelter are aware of who he is, but he mainly keeps to himself helping out in the kitchen.

“The shelter gives me everything — food, housing, the whole thing.”

Nakoula is not in touch with his family and is apparently estranged from them. Additionally, he no longer talks to friends or business associates from his past.

“I’m disappeared from them.”

Nakoula said the church continues to help him look for more work, but the Benghazi video controversy has made it difficult.

Although, it was later revealed that Nakoula’s video did not cause the attack, Clinton and the rest of the administration never took responsibility for falsely blaming the movie.

Clinton testified at the Benghazi hearing that she “needed to be talking about the video,” when Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan grilled her over the issue.

“We also knew, congressman, because my responsibility was what was happening throughout the region, I needed to be talking about the video, because I needed to put other governments and other people on notice that we were not going to let them get away with attacking us, as they did in Tunis, as they did in Khartoum.”

Additionally, while Clinton never privately blamed the attack on Nakoula’s video, she and President Obama publicly shamed the film for causing the attack.