The parents of two men killed in a 2012 terror attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Hillary Clinton on Monday, 8 August 2016.
Patricia Smith and Charles Woods, the parents of Sean Smith, a diplomat, and Tyrone Woods, a security officer respectively, are claiming Clinton's use of a private e-mail server caused the attack on the facility in Libya. They also accuse Clinton of defamation.
The lawsuit claims the attack was "directly and proximately caused" by Clinton's handling of classified information, calling it "highly probable" that she sent or received information about Ambassador Chris Stevens. The suit claims the information "found its way to foreign powers" and then was obtained by terrorists.
After an FBI probe of Clinton's email server, the bureau declined to file criminal charges against her but criticized her handling of classified information as "extremely careless." Director James Comey said it was "possible that hostile actors gained access" to her server but found no evidence it had actually been hacked.
Patricia Smith spoke at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July 2016, where she said, "I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son."
The parents are being represented by Larry Klayman, a conservative activist attorney and founder of Freedom Watch, a "political advocacy" organization.
In 2015 he unsuccessfully sued Clinton for not turning her emails over to him directly. In July 2016, Klayman penned a column for conservative WND announcing a lawsuit against President Barack Obama, who he claimed is a Muslim who hates whites, Jews and Christians.
Nick Merrill, a Clinton campaign spokesman, provided a response to the suit to NBC News:
While no one can imagine the pain of the families of the brave Americans we lost at Benghazi, there have been nine different investigations into this attack and none found any evidence whatsoever of any wrongdoing on the part of Hillary Clinton.
After a two-year investigation, the House Select Committee on Benghazi issued sharp criticism against the CIA and departments of Defense and State for failing to grasp the security risks to and protect the U.S. outpost in Benghazi.
The 800-page report found no clear evidence of misconduct or dereliction of duty by Clinton. It was this committee, however, that discovered Clinton used a private e-mail server during her four-year tenure as head of the State Department.