During a conference call from China with reporters Wednesday, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy was abruptly and inexplicably cut off as he began to talk about the security of Americans overseas.
Malloy, who is traveling in China this week for an economic summit, was responding to a question on security asked in light of the Tuesday killings of U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans during an attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi.
About 20 minutes into the conference call, Malloy was asked whether there was extra security around Americans in China because of the attack in Libya.
Malloy said he watched the beginning of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s response to the attack before calling in. He then began to answer the question:
“There’s a lot of security, around—”
Then the governor was gone. Reporters and the governor’s communication staff were confused by the lost connection.
“I wonder if it was the mention of security,” Roy Occhiogrosso, Malloy’s senior communication adviser, said.
“I have a feeling someone may have heard that and whacked the call,” he added a few minutes later.
Five minutes after being disconnected the governor came back on the line. This time he was able to answer the question.
“I don’t know where I lost it. The last question was about security and the bottom line is, I see no increases as a result of the Libyan situation,” Malloy said.
So was the governor’s call terminated by U.S. or Chinese authorities? Malloy’s office didn’t have an answer Wednesday afternoon. However, Malloy spokesman Andrew Doba points out that the governor was using a mobile phone, so he could have simply lost his coverage.
