Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got into a heated exchange Wednesday with Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., during her testimony about the Sept. 11, 2012, assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. After Johnson questioned the State Department’s handling of the deadly terrorist attack, even claiming that it had misled the public about what happened, Clinton lost her temper and fired back.

“With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans,” she said, raising her voice at Johnson. “Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk last night who decided to kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, senator.”

She later added, “To be clear, it is, from my perspective, less important today looking backwards as to why these militants decided they did it than to find them and bring them to justice, and then maybe we’ll figure out what was going on in the meantime.”

— Posted by Tracy Bloom.