John R. Bolton, U.N. ambassador under the George W. Bush administration, told Fox News Channel a Clinton staff explanation the former first lady fainted, hitting her head and suffering a concussion, so she couldn't testify before Congress, was what foreign-service officers call a "diplomatic illness," intended to free a diplomat from an unpleasant duty.

"This is a diplomatic illness to beat the band," said Bolton, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank and a Fox News commentator who was also a foreign policy adviser to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.