Hillary’s contempt at start of Benghazi hearing: Clinton flicks through her notes and stares at briefing as chairman reads out names of four dead Americans

Hillary Clinton opened Thursday's hearing before a House committee by casually flipping through her notes and shaking her head as the panel's top Republican read out the names of four Americans who died in the 2012 terror attack on a State Department outpost in Benghazi, Libya.

Cable TV broadcasts showed Clinton, who was secretary of state when heavily armed Islamists laid waste to the Benghazi facilities, paying no attention to Rep. Trey Gowdy as he intoned the names of Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

They 'served this country with courage and with honor,' Gowdy said. 'And they were killed under circumstances most of us could never imagine.'

'Terrorists poured through the front gate of an American facility attacking people and property with machine guns, mortars and fire.'

Clinton stared forward wordlessly through most of Gowdy's opening salvo after shuffling through her papers as he began the day's circus-like proceedings.