Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., criticized the Obama administration, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for politicizing its handling of the Sept. 11, 2012 attack against the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
He told Fox News Thursday that the Obama administration's concern about the president's re-election led it to initially blame the attack on an anti-Islamic YouTube video rather than terrorism,
Politico reports.
"In some way, shape, or form, they sent the order that these talking points should not be allowed to include any reference to terrorism . . . but rather [that] this was something that was the result of a YouTube video. So I think that was the political motivation behind it," Rubio said.
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"What I think is sad is how many people around the administration — including the former secretary of State, Secretary Clinton — knew this to be the case and allowed this to move forward anyway. You would hope that people would’ve stood up and said, 'This is wrong. The American people deserve the truth.' That didn’t happen."
Rubio and Clinton are both seen as potential presidential candidates in 2016.
In the end, the administration's handling of the Benghazi attack was about politics, Rubio said. "[The] president was in the middle of his re-election. One of his talking points was that terrorism had been defeated and that he had defeated it. And this ran counter to that narrative. They didn’t want to admit it was a terrorist attack."
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