With tensions between President Obama and the Clintons at a new high, former President Bill Clinton is moving fast to develop a contingency plan for how his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, should react if Obama attempts to tie the Benghazi fiasco around her neck, according to author Ed Klein.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, Klein said sources close to the Clintons tell him that Bill Clinton has assembled an informal legal team to discuss how the Secretary of State should deal with the issue of being blamed for not preventing the Benghazi terrorist attack last month.
White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters during a press conference Friday that responsibility for the consulate in Libya fell on the State Department, not the White House.
If blame for the security failures falls to Hillary Clinton, Klein said, it’s possible that she would even consider resigning over the issue.
“Bill is working on a number of strategies about what Hillary ought to do. He’s even gone so far as to play with various doomsday scenarios including up to the idea that Hillary would consider resigning over the issue if the Obama team tries to use her as a scapegoat,” Klein told TheDC in an interview.
Klein — the best-selling author of the Amateur, a book on President Obama — elaborated on his reporting in an op-ed for The Daily Caller.
As of Friday afternoon, the White House, the State Department and the former president’s office did not return requests from The Daily Caller for comment on Klein’s reporting.
But as for the chance that Hillary Clinton would resign, Klein said in the interview: “At this moment, it appears unlikely that she’s going to do that. I mean that would be an extreme step for her to take.”
“Not only would it be hard to predict how it would play out as far as Hillary is concerned in the future, but it would certainly damage Obama’s chances for re-election if she resigned,” he said.
Klein said relations between the Clintons and President Obama have reached a new low, most recently with Obama ignoring Bill Clinton’s offer to help him and Vice President Joe Biden prepare for the debates with the Republican ticket.
“He had very clear ideas on how they should do that,” Klein told TheDC. “He never once got a response. And it absolutely sent him into orbit. He was furious that he would be treated this way, especially after what he did, in his view, at the Democratic convention in giving that nomination speech for Obama.”
Added Klein: “His fury turned to deep concern when the Benghazi business unfolded because he was deeply troubled by the appearance that the White House was going to throw Hillary under the bus, which in fact it appears it is doing.”
Klein said Bill Clinton’s informal legal team is made up of people he’s used in the past in legal situations. He asked them by phone to tell him how Hillary Clinton should handle this situation and what to do if she is subpoenaed to testify to the House Oversight Committee and provide them with memos regarding Benghazi.
The author said the situation is obviously complicated by Obama’s re-election, but also the possibility that Hillary would run in 2016.
“If she is left with this stain on her reputation, it could seriously damage her chances for election,” Klein told TheDC. “And this is what is really bothering Bill more than anything.”
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