Richard Engel: Republican convention went to a ‘very dark place’ to exploit Benghazi mother’s grief

Speaking to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow this Monday, NBC foreign correspondent Richard Engel commented on a speech by Patricia Smith, mother of Sean Smith who was one of the four Americans killed in the attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

Maddow started out the segment reacting to Smith’s “very emotional, very raw remarks which included her saying that she held Hillary Clinton personally responsible – personally for the death of her son.”

Maddow additionally pointed out that Smith also expressed that she’d like to see Clinton is prison.

Maddow then brought on Engel who personally knew U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, who was also killed in the attack.

“Richard, what’s your response to how this has been addressed tonight at the convention?” Maddow asked. “How do you hear this?”

“I knew Ambassador Stevens and spent some time with him in Benghazi during the war, and it was a very chaotic time,” Engel responded.

It was a time where you didn’t know which militias you could trust, you were feeling a lot of support one day from a particular rebel group if you were helping them, but then if they didn’t feel they were getting enough help, they might turn on you, and I think that’s really what happened here.

Engel went on to describe the “misunderstanding of the security situation” that led to the attack and the misreading of how dangerous Benghazi was, adding that whether the response was “perfect or imperfect has been studied time and time again.”

But to hear this grieving mother — and you could only sympathize with her grief — to lay the blame directly at Hillary Clinton, saying that Hillary was responsible for her son’s death — personally responsible, doesn’t correspond with the facts as I know them and as I’ve read them in subsequent investigations, and it does seem to be a manipulation of someone’s grief and going to a very dark place.

Watch the video below, via MSNBC:

Sky Palma

Before launching DeadState back in 2012, Sky Palma has been blogging about politics, social issues and religion for over a decade. He lives in Los Angeles and also enjoys Brazilian jiu jitsu, chess, music and art.

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