Clinton testifies to Congress on her role in Benghazi attacks amid calls hearings designed to smear the presidential hopeful

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday deflected harsh Republican criticism of her handling of the deadly 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, and urged her questioners in Congress to put US national security ahead of politics.

At a sometimes bitter day-long hearing, Republicans accused the front-runner in the next year Democratic presidential race of misinforming the public about the cause of the attack by suspected Islamic militants that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi.

Clinton, 67, calmly avoided the fray during the most heated exchanges between Republicans and her Democratic allies, and stayed composed under sometimes hostile and aggressive questions from Republican lawmakers.

But hours of questioning uncovered no new revelations in a deadly incident that has been the subject of a half-dozen other congressional investigations and an independent inquiry.

In one of the most pointed exchanges, Republican Representative Jim Jordan said Clinton had misleadingly implied after the attack that it was a reaction to an anti-Muslim video. Clinton, who denies suggesting the video was the cause, called Jordan’s accusation “personally painful.”

“I’ve thought more about what happened than all of you put together,” she told the Republican-led panel. “I’ve lost more sleep than all of you put together. I’ve been racking my brain about what could have been done, should have been done.”