Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will appear Thursday before the Republican-led special House committee investigating the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. 

Clinton is facing a long day of questioning about her role before and after the September 11 attack on the compound, which led to the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans when Clinton was the country’s top diplomat. 

Her testimony comes as criticism mounts behind accusations that Republicans are using it to damage Clinton’s bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

Democrats, including Clinton herself, have seized on remarks made earlier this month by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy during an appearance on a Fox News program. McCarthy appeared to boast that since House Republicans created the special committee looking into the attacks, Clinton’s approval ratings have dropped.

Debate performance

Observers will be watching to see how Clinton handles herself before the committee. Her poll numbers have improved since her strong performance in last week’s nationally televised Democratic presidential debate, a factor that may have helped lead to Wednesday’s announcement by Vice President Joe Biden that he would not launch his own presidential bid.

The panel was created in May 2014 after seven previous congressional probes into the attack. Democrats have called for the panel to be disbanded, saying it has not come up with any new information about Benghazi and is wasting taxpayer money. 

But committee chairman Trey Gowdy has pledged in recent interviews that the questioning of Clinton will be strictly focused on the security situation of the Benghazi outpost in the months before the attacks.

Clinton has been in this position before. She fended off Senate Republicans in 2013 in a heated exchange when she was asked what was behind the attacks on two U.S. sites – the diplomatic mission and a nearby CIA compound – in Benghazi. 
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