Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to appear before the House Benghazi committee on Thursday. It’s far from her first appearance at the witness table.
As first lady, Clinton went to Capitol Hill in 1993 to push for President Bill Clinton’s health care plan. Over several days of testimony, Clinton lobbied five House and Senate committees. That plan ultimately failed to become law, but it was the nation’s first high-profile glimpse of Clinton as a policy advocate.
She was a frequent questioner of Capitol Hill hearing witnesses years later when she served as U.S. senator from New York from 2000 until 2009. After her failed campaign for president in 2008, Clinton returned to the halls of Congress in 2009 when she was nominated by President Barack Obama as his first secretary of state. She was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 94-2.
Her most high-profile testimony as secretary came in 2013, when she first testified regarding the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. That’s the topic that brings her back today to defend her actions leading up to and after the attack.