Benghazi Attack: 'Hillary Is A Boldfaced Liar'

The mother of one of the men killed in the attack on a US compound in Benghazi has described Hillary Clinton as a "boldfaced liar".

It comes as the US Presidential hopeful goes up against a hostile select committee over the deaths of four diplomats in Libya.

Mrs Clinton was Secretary of State on 11 September, 2012, when a diplomatic compound in Benghazi was stormed by terrorists.

Four US officials were killed including the American ambassador Christopher Stevens.

The subsequent investigation is now focusing on whether Mrs Clinton could have provided more security to the staff in Benghazi.

Patricia Smith, whose son Sean Smith was one of those murdered in the attack, told Sky News: "Why wasn't there security for my son and the ambassador and the other guys?

"There was supposed to be security.

"The night before, he called me and he said 'mum there's trouble here … there's people walking around and taking pictures of everything. Something is going to happen.'

"He asked for more security and they turned him down, and the ambassador asked for more security and they turned him down too. Why?"

Mrs Smith added: "I'm calling Hillary a boldfaced liar."

But while the focus of this investigation should be what happened in Benghazi, Democrats claim it is an attempt by a partisan Republican panel to keep Mrs Clinton out of the White House.

In a recent interview with Fox News House, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the committee had achieved its goal of damaging Mrs Clinton's poll numbers.

"Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable. But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee.

"What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping."

The suggestion is that the committee has helped reduce Mrs Clinton's popularity.

A series of adverts by her team have extended the implication, by stating that the committee was designed to do precisely that.

The email scandal, which has come out of the Benghazi investigation, has been damaging to the former secretary of state; with revelations she kept work emails on her personal computer.

She insists she did not break any rules or expose classified information to a potential security risk.

Democrat strategist Liz Chadderdon said: "The focus should be on what happened in Benghazi but a lot of the questions, or at least the posturing from the Republicans on committee, will be about 'got-yah' politics, trying to further embarrass Mrs Clinton."

The committee is the eighth congressional panel to probe the attacks and the third Mrs Clinton has given evidence to.

But it is the first to conduct an investigation with full access to her email records, and this week the committee received new emails belonging to Mr Stevens.