House panel on Benghazi attack releases more Clinton emails

WASHINGTON — The day after the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, a longtime confidant wrote then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that a Libyan security official thought the attack was inspired by a video mocking Islam’s prophet Muhammad.

The information was in emails to Clinton from Sidney Blumenthal released Monday by a Republican-led House panel investigating the attack, which killed four Americans, including U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens.

The email on the day after the Sept. 11, 2012 attack said that during a top-level meeting, a senior security officer told Libya’s new interim President Mohamed Yousef el-Magariaf that the attacks were inspired by what he said was a “sacrilegious Internet video” on the prophet.