Rand Paul: 'Very Good Chance' Hillary Lied About Syria, Libya Arms

There was a "very good chance" Hillary Clinton lied before Congress two years ago about how much she knew about U.S. weapons being sent to rebel groups in Libya and Syria, Sen. Rand Paul alleged on Wednesday.

"I find it hard to believe Hillary Clinton didn't know, because she was the biggest cheerleader for sending those arms and redistributing those arms" to Syrian rebels, the Kentucky Republican told Bill Hemmer, the host of Fox News' "America's Newsroom."

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Two years ago, Paul had questioned the then-secretary of state during a Senate hearing about the allegations that a CIA annex group assisted in procuring, buying and selling weapons and whether those weapons had been shipped to other countries.

Clinton told Paul that he would have to "direct that question to the agency that ran the annex," and when Paul asked her if that meant she was saying she didn't know, she replied: "I do not know."

Late last month, Fox Business News reported in an exclusive story that federal court documents obtained by the network showed that the United States supported the secret supply of weapons to Libyan rebels while Clinton was secretary of state.

On Wednesday, Paul told Hemmer that he finds it hard to believe that Clinton didn't know what was going on "because she was the biggest cheerleader for sending these arms and redistributing these arms to Syrian rebels."

But many of the arms ended up in the hands of people who "are not friends of America," said Paul, including people linked with al-Qaida and al-Nusra, and even into the hands of those linked to groups that eventually became the Islamic State (ISIS).

"This is no small fact," said Paul, who like Clinton is seeking a party nomination for the White House in 2016. "Whether she told the truth is a big deal."

Some of Clinton's emails that are coming out about the 2012 Benghazi attacks, in which Ambassador Chris Stevens, Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Ty Woods and Glen Doherty were murdered, also indicate she "maybe did know a lot more about this arms trade than she let on," Paul said, and that's a problem for him.

"I don't think our public officials should be allowed to come before congressional committees and lie," he said, noting that the United States has a "big problem" with ISIS and he wants to know if it has anything to do "with Hillary Clinton arming people who became ISIS or were friends or allies of ISIS."

And when Hemmer asked Paul if he believes Clinton lied, the senator replied, "I think there's a very good chance. I think there's no way Hillary Clinton didn't know about this. [In] her private emails, she was the one supporting arming these people."

News reports are also indicating that Qatar "was very indiscriminate" when it came to arms that were passing through, Paul said, and in the way that country redistributed those weapons.

"There were actually weapons that showed up in Afghanistan and (were) used against us that came through Qatar," said Paul.

He then brought up Clinton's campaign, saying the nation has to "be careful" as "do we want a commander in chief that is so sloppy about who they give arms to?" ISIS, he said, "has a billion dollars worth of our Humvees."

Hemmer pointed out that many of Clinton's emails are missing, to which Paul replied that some of the emails he's using as proof were in the network's own exclusive story.

"The emails indicate she was a supporter of arming folks involved in the Syrian civil war," said Paul. "And there is a question of whether she was being honest with me in the committee. Do I have proof? No. But I have a strong suspicion she was not telling the truth."

Paul added that Turkey was "simply a conduit" in getting weapons to Syrian rebels, and when Clinton said she did not know anything about Turkey, "the real question was Syria, so my follow-up question was Turkey or any other countries, and she said no."

"I believe that to be factually false," Paul said, "and I think she was dishonest with the American public. Even more than her dishonesty, was it a good idea to give weapons to people allied with al-Qaida, al-Nusra and ISIS, all radical jihadists?

"We are now at war with people who kill and chop heads off of Americans. These people are allies of those we were giving weapons to. That was a huge foreign policy mistake led by Hillary Clinton and some hawks in my party."

Paul also accused Clinton of breaking several laws regarding the personal email servers she used as secretary of state.

"One is she was supposed to use a government email address and government server," he said. "I think we're finding out more and more and we'll find out if any of these were sensitive or classified. We'll have to trust her because she deleted all her emails which indicates perhaps there was something to hide."

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