Fox's Karl Rove Reportedly Claims Hillary Clinton Has Brain Damage

Fox contributor Karl Rove baselessly claimed that Hillary Clinton suffered a “traumatic brain injury” in a 2012 fall while urging Republicans to keep the issue of Benghazi alive into the 2016 election.

According to the New York Post's Page Six, Rove reportedly told an audience on May 8 that he was skeptical of Clinton's recovery after the former Secretary of State fainted and fell in her home in December 2012. The fall delayed Clinton's testimony before a House committee on the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Rove suggested that Clinton's fall left some unanswered questions and attacked the amount of time she spent recovering in the hospital. Rove went on to claim that Clinton's use of corrective glasses was likely a sign of “traumatic brain injury” (emphasis added):

Onstage with Robert Gibbs and CBS correspondent and “Spies Against Armageddon” co-author Dan Raviv, Rove said Republicans should keep the Benghazi issue alive.

He said if Clinton runs for president, voters must be told what happened when she suffered a fall in December 2012.

The official diagnosis was a blood clot. Rove told the conference near LA Thursday, “Thirty days in the hospital? And when she reappears, she's wearing glasses that are only for people who have traumatic brain injury? We need to know what's up with that.”

Rove repeated the claim a number of times to the audience.

Rove's claims are false, without evidence, and contrary to medical experts' opinion. Clinton spent four days, not 30 days, in the hospital after a blood clot was discovered in her brain several days after her fall. Furthermore, according to experts and the State Department, glasses worn by Clinton during her January 2013 testimony on the attacks in Benghazi were a corrective instrument meant to treat “double vision” as a result of her fall -- not brain damage.

Clinton herself explained in an outgoing interview with CBS' 60 Minutes that she had “some lingering effects from the concussion that are decreasing and will disappear,” including wearing glasses instead of contact lenses. Clinton went on to share that the experience left her with a better understanding of others' injuries: “I have a lot of sympathy now when I pick up the paper and read about an athlete or one of our soldiers who's had traumatic brain injury.”

Rove's baseless smear is the latest false attack on Clinton and part of the Republican drumbeat for continued investigations into the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, in an effort to score political points in the next presidential election.