Hillary Clinton's State Department armed ISIS
| Hillary Clinton's State Department armed ISIS | |
|---|---|
| UNSUPPORTED | |
| "Hillary Clinton's State Department armed the Islamic State, including by funneling weapons from Libya to Syrian rebels." | |
| Domain | War, Conflict & Geopolitics |
| Tactic | Conspiracy Theory |
| Era | Current |
| First seen | 2016 |
| Origin | WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's November 2016 interview with John Pilger and social media claims during the 2016 campaign |
| Last reviewed | 2026-10-29 |
| Further reading: books on War, Conflict & Geopolitics | |
During the 2016 campaign, claims spread that Hillary Clinton's State Department had armed ISIS. Julian Assange said in a November 2016 interview that leaked emails showed the same Gulf states funded both ISIS and the Clinton Foundation. Others said weapons from Libya had been sent to ISIS through a CIA operation tied to Benghazi.
The documents cited do not show that the State Department armed ISIS.
What the evidence shows
- The 2014 email. A draft memo in John Podesta's emails, written after Clinton left office, said the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar were giving support to ISIS. It was a statement about those governments, not about US policy.
- Weapons to Syria. The Obama administration later ran a covert CIA program to arm vetted Syrian rebel groups. Some weapons from various programs ended up with jihadist groups, according to Conflict Armament Research. No evidence shows Clinton's State Department supplied ISIS.
- Benghazi. House investigations into Benghazi, including the 2016 Select Committee report, did not find that the US was shipping arms from Libya to Syria.
Why it matters
Weapons leakage in Syria and Gulf states' funding of extremists are real and documented problems. Collapsing them into a claim that Clinton armed ISIS skips the evidence that would be needed to connect them.
Sources
- House Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi, Final Report, June 2016.
- Conflict Armament Research, Weapons of the Islamic State, December 2017.
- PolitiFact, "Did Hillary Clinton arm ISIS?" 2016.