Washington • On Inauguration Day, then-Rep. Jason Chaffetz earned a social media rebuke for posting a picture showing him shaking hands with Hillary Clinton, noting he was “so pleased she is not the president.”
“I thanked her for her service and wished her luck,” the Utah Republican wrote on Instagram. “The investigation continues.”
The Twitterverse thought Chaffetz, then head of the House Oversight Committee, was being petty and insulting on a day when Clinton was being gracious by attending her competitor’s inaugural.
Turns out, Clinton didn’t even know she was shaking hands with Chaffetz — her most dogged investigator until resigning in June.
In Clinton’s new book “What Happened,” she notes that she wasn’t sure who Chaffetz was.
“We headed up the stairs to leave the platform and go back inside the Capitol, shaking hands along the way,” Clinton writes in the opening chapter, according to The Daily Beast, which obtained an early copy of the book. “I saw a man off to the side who I thought was Reince Priebus, head of the Republican National Committee and incoming White House chief of staff. As I passed by, we shook hands and exchanged small talk. Later I realized it hadn’t been Priebus at all. It was Jason Chaffetz, the then-Utah Congressman and wannabe Javert who made endless political hay out of my emails and the 2012 tragedy in Benghazi, Libya.”
After Chaffetz posted the image to Instagram with his snide comment, Clinton thought about commenting, according to The Daily Beast.
She wrote that she “came this close to tweeting back, ‘To be honest, thought you were Reince,’” Clinton wrote.
Contacted Friday, Chaffetz said the incident happened “a long time ago” but that he was shocked Clinton could have mistaken him for Priebus.
“That would be a first, nobody has ever, ever thought I was Reince Priebus,” Chaffetz said. “Ralph Macchio, yes; Reince Priebus, never,” he added, referring to the actor from the original “Karate Kid” and “My Cousin Vinny.”
“What Happened,” which details Clinton’s take on the raucous 2016 election, is set to be released Tuesday.
