John Bolton, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, suggested Monday night that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faked her illness to avoid testifying in Congress about Benghazi.

“You know, every foreign service officer in every foreign ministry in the world knows the phrase I am about to use, when you don’t want to go to a meeting or conference or an event, you have a ‘diplomatic illness,'” he said on Fox News. “And this is a ‘diplomatic illness’ to beat the band. I mean, I certainly hope it’s nothing serious. But this was revealed in a way that I think was not transparent and I think there is an obligation here.”

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The conservative Bush appointee made the same allegations in an opinion piece published by the New York Post on Tuesday.

Clinton fainted and hit her head over the weekend, resulting in a concussion. A spokesperson for the State Department said Clinton was suffering from a stomach virus and became dehydrated.

Due to her illness, the State Department said she would not be able to testify before Congress on Thursday regarding the attack on the Libyan consulate in Benghazi, which left four Americans dead.

Republicans have claimed the Obama administration is involved in a cover-up regarding the attacks. The administration initially blamed a spontaneous protest against an anti-Islam film produced in the United States. It was later revealed no protest had occurred and that the attacks were perpetrated by Libyan militants sympathetic to al Qaeda. The Obama administration said it had received erroneous intelligence reports, leading to the confusion.

Watch video, courtesy of Media Matters, below:

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[John Bolton via Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons licensed]