With an acclaimed performance at the Democrat debate behind her, and Joe Biden demurring on a presidential run, Hillary Clinton’s next hurdle before securing her iron grip on the Democrat nomination was an appearance before the House Select Committee on Benghazi Thursday. And if Leftmedia circle-the-wagons headlines like “No clear wins for GOP at Benghazi hearing” and “Marathon Benghazi hearing leaves Hillary Clinton largely unscathed” are any indication, she has little reason to worry.

Or does she?

Committee Democrats did their best to grandstand and ask leading questions to help bring out the “answers” Clinton wanted to give. But her felonious complicity in and her subsequent cover-up of the true story of the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi was on full display. As committee chairman Trey Gowdy made clear in his opening statement, Ambassador Christopher Stevens, his aide Sean Smith, and two diplomatic security officers, former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, deserve answers and accountability.

Clinton was addressing three audiences Thursday, the first two being obvious: the committee and her public constituency. The third audience was less evident — FBI investigators, who are looking for any attempts she makes to obfuscate the truth. If she does anything to divert from the truth — not just perjury — it’s a felony. And we all know the Clintons are adept at perjuring themselves.

There is still a chance, however remote, that Clinton will be indicted by the FBI regarding her mishandling of classified material on her private email server. Which brings us to the most significant moment in Thursday’s Benghazi hearings, thanks to her now-public emails.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) brought up a couple of key communications from Clinton in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack revealing that she knew from the moment shots were fired it was terrorism. The night of the attack, Clinton emailed her daughter, Chelsea, and said, “Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an Al Queda-like [sic] group.”

“You tell the American people one thing,” Jordan noted. “You tell your family an entirely different story.”

Even more damning is the second record: a State Department summary of a call between Clinton and the Egyptian prime minister the day after the attack. Those notes reveal she informed him, “We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack — not a protest.” Furthermore, “Based on the information we saw today we believe the group that claimed responsibility for this was affiliated with al Qaeda.”

Yet on the night of the attack, the State Department issued a statement blaming “inflammatory material posted on the Internet” for a spontaneous protest that became violent.

On the anniversary of 9/11 by mere coincidence, we suppose.

Jordan laid into Clinton: “Let me read that one more time. We know — not we think, not it might be — we know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with a film. It was a planned attack. Not a protest. State Department experts knew the truth. You knew the truth, but that’s not what the American people got.”

Democrats and their Leftmedia posse want us to believe Clinton emerged from the hearing unscathed, and that she had every right to look as irritated and bored as she did. But it’s no wonder Clinton sought to conceal her email, and then, when she could no longer do so, deleted 30,000 of them before handing over printed copies to the State Department. She had a lot to hide.

At one point in the 11-hour hearing, Clinton attempted to take the moral high ground, asserting, “I would imagine I’ve thought more about what happened than all of you put together. I’ve lost more sleep than all of you put together. I have been wracking my brain about what more could have been done or should have been done.”

Chris Stevens has lost a lot of sleep too, though he was unavailable for comment.

As we have said all along, Clinton and the entire Obama administration lied about the attack. Not only did Clinton lie to the American people for weeks, she had the audacity to lie to the families of the four slain Americans over their flag-draped caskets. “We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with,” she told them.

And on Thursday, she doubled down on that lie, insisting, “I believe to this day the video played a role.”

Totally outrageous. But her penchant for uttering falsehoods has become habitual. Indeed, she appears presidential because she’s no longer fazed by the prospect of lying.

Clinton and Obama lied about Benghazi in order to provide political cover for Obama’s 2012 campaign and Clinton’s 2016 aspirations. After all, as secretary of state, she would far rather conjure up a false narrative related to an obscure anti-Islamic Internet video than to acknowledge that the first ambassador killed in 30 years was murdered by al-Qaida. Not when Clinton and Obama were covering up her record of malfeasance by insisting their foreign policy was a success and al-Qaida was “on the run.”

“Where did the false narrative start?” Jordan asked rhetorically. “It started with you, Madame Secretary.”

That inconvenient truth renders her completely unfit for office, and we will endeavor to persuade the American people to see it that clearly. Whether or not she’s indicted by the FBI, she should be indicted by voters and sent into permanent retirement.