--- title: Bill Clinton Defends Hillary On Benghazi, Karl Rove Attacks description: The former president said his wife handled the attack in Libya appropriately canonical: https://time.com/99347/bill-clinton-hillary-karl-rove-benghazi/ author: Zeke Miller article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-14T16:16:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:47:50.988Z article:section: Politics og:title: Bill Clinton Defends Hillary On Benghazi, Karl Rove Attacks og:description: The former president said his wife handled the attack in Libya appropriately og:url: https://time.com/99347/bill-clinton-hillary-karl-rove-benghazi/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd0fdca7afe8451b1/69868f53adae44b60b54314c/bill-clinton-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3500 og:image:height: 1969 og:image:alt: Former President Bill Clinton gestures during an onstage interview at the 2014 Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit in Washington May 14, 2014. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Bill Clinton Defends Hillary On Benghazi, Karl Rove Attacks twitter:description: The former president said his wife handled the attack in Libya appropriately twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd0fdca7afe8451b1/69868f53adae44b60b54314c/bill-clinton-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Bill Clinton Defends Hillary On Benghazi, Rove Attacks > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller May 14, 2014 4:16 PM UTC  Former President Bill Clinton gestures during an onstage interview at the 2014 Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit in Washington May 14, 2014. Former President Bill Clinton gestures during an onstage interview at the 2014 Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit in Washington May 14, 2014. Jonathan Ernst—Reuters by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller May 14, 2014 4:16 PM UTC Former President Bill Clinton on Wednesday defended his wife Hillary’s handling of the 2012 attack on an American consulate in Libya, just as congressional Republicans are [launching another investigation](http://time.com/93671/house-select-committee-benghazi/) of the attack and its aftermath. “In my opinion, Hillary did what she should have done,” Clinton said Wednesday at the Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit, saying she formed a high-level panel to investigate the attack in Benghazi and ways it could have been prevented. “Secretaries of State never were involved directly in these security decisions.” Clinton said he did not want to be drawn into a political fight, but he asserted that “most Americans don’t even know how many American diplomatic personnel were killed while President Bush was president.” Clinton also responded to GOP operative Karl Rove, who [reportedly suggested recently that the former secretary of state sustained “brain damage”](http://time.com/97489/karl-rove-hillary-clinton-health/) in a 2012 fall. Rove denies he used that phrase, but has said it’s legitimate to raise questions about Clinton’s health as the former secretary of state eyes a possible 2016 presidential bid. “First they said she faked her concussion and now they say she is auditioning for her part on the Walking Dead,” Clinton told PBS’s Gwen Ifill. “If she does, I must be in really tough shape because she is still quicker than I am.” Clinton said he was “dumbfounded” by Rove’s comments, which even many Republicans criticized, but that the GOP would surely continue to raise questions about her age. “They’ll get better at it,” Clinton said. “I’m still waiting for them to admit there was nothing to Whitewater,” he added. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/99347/bill-clinton-hillary-karl-rove-benghazi/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/99347/bill-clinton-hillary-karl-rove-benghazi/"},"headline":"Bill Clinton Defends Hillary On Benghazi, Rove Attacks","datePublished":"2014-05-14T16:16:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:47:50.988Z","description":"Former President BIll Clinton said at the Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit on Wednesday that his wife handled the attack in Libya appropriately and that he was \"dumbfounded\" by Karl Rove's suggestion she suffered brain damage from a fall in 2012","url":"https://time.com/99347/bill-clinton-hillary-karl-rove-benghazi/","keywords":["2016 Election","Hillary Clinton","2016 Election","Bill Clinton"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd0fdca7afe8451b1/69868f53adae44b60b54314c/bill-clinton-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Zeke Miller","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd0fdca7afe8451b1/69868f53adae44b60b54314c/bill-clinton-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Former President Bill Clinton gestures during an onstage interview at the 2014 Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit in Washington May 14, 2014.","caption":"Former President Bill Clinton gestures during an onstage interview at the 2014 Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit in Washington May 14, 2014.","creditText":"Jonathan Ernst—Reuters","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/99347/bill-clinton-hillary-karl-rove-benghazi/","name":"Bill Clinton Defends Hillary On Benghazi, Rove Attacks"}}]}] ```