WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton said in an
interview airing Monday that she feels emboldened to run for president
because of Republican criticism of her handling of the deadly 2012
terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
In an interview with ABC
News, Clinton said the Benghazi inquiry from Republicans gives her a
greater incentive to run for president because she considers the
multiple investigations into the attacks "minor league ball" for a
country of the United States’ stature. But she said she’s still
undecided.
"It’s more of a reason to run, because I do not believe
our great country should be playing minor league ball. We ought to be
in the majors," Clinton said. "I view this as really apart from — even a
diversion from — the hard work that the Congress should be doing about
the problems facing our country and the world."
The interview
publicizing her new book, "Hard Choices," highlighted some of the key
lines of criticism Clinton could face if she runs for president in two
years: Her record as President Barack Obama’s top diplomat and charges
by Republicans that she has been insulated from the everyday problems of
Americans after more than two decades in public life.
In the
interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, Clinton said her family struggled
with legal bills and debt when she and her husband left the White House
in early 2001.
"We came out of the White House not only dead
broke, but in debt," Clinton said. "We had no money when we got there,
and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for
mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea’s education. You know, it was not
easy."
Republicans immediately seized on the comment, two years
after their presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, was dogged by accusations
of being out-of-touch because of his wealth. GOP officials pointed out
that Hillary Clinton received an $8 million book advance for her 2003
memoir and said the comments reflected her insulation from the daily
problems of average Americans.
"I think she’s been out of touch
with average people for a long time," said Republican National Committee
chairman Reince Priebus, pointing to Clinton’s estimated
$200,000-per-speech speaking fees and million-dollar book advances.
"Whether she was flat broke or not is not the issue. It’s tone deaf to
average people."
Hillary Clinton’s Senate financial disclosure
forms, filed for 2000, show assets between $781,000 and almost $1.8
million. The forms allow senators to report assets in broad ranges. The
same form, however, showed that the Clintons owed between $2.3 million
and $10.6 million in legal bills to four firms.
Democrats noted
that the Clintons gave away $10 million after departing the White House
and during the 2008 campaign, Mrs. Clinton released tax reforms that
showed a total of $1.1 million in book proceeds went to charities
between 2000 and early 2008.
Her book also offers a rebuke to
Republicans who have seized upon the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack
that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Republicans
have accused the Obama administration of stonewalling congressional
investigators and misleading the public about the nature of the attack
in the weeks before the presidential election. As Clinton weighs her
political future, Republicans have questioned her response to the
attacks and whether she could have done more to secure the diplomatic
compounds.
Multiple independent, bipartisan and Republican-led
investigations have faulted the State Department for inadequate security
in Benghazi, leading to four demotions. No attacker has been arrested.
Obama
and Clinton allies alike have argued that there is no new information
following more than a dozen public hearings and the release of 25,000
pages of documents.
In her book, Clinton calls the accusations
plainly political, writing that she will not be "part of a political
slugfest on the backs of dead Americans."
Asked whether she will
testify before a new congressional committee investigating the attacks,
Clinton would not make any commitments, saying it depends on how the
inquiry is conducted.
"I’m not going to say one way or another,"
Clinton said. "We’ll see what they decide to do, how they conduct
themselves: Whether this is one more travesty about the loss of four
Americans or whether this is in the best tradition of the Congress, an
effort to try and figure out what we can do better."
___
Associated Press writer Philip Elliott contributed to this report.