She was the final speaker at the Capitol Hill news conference where the Republican report on Benghazi was released.
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(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File).
Republicans released their versions of the House Select Committee on Benghazi reports on the terror attacks of September 11, 2012, and while their main report contains absolutely no evidence to support the scandal narrative that Republicans admit was the motivation behind their committee, it has given plenty of fodder to cable news. The State Department failed to adequately protect Americans serving overseas and failed to plan ahead for potential terrorist attacks on the anniversary of 9/11 in countries plagued with instability. Yet, they led the public to believe the video and a protest were to blame. It pulled out of Libya altogether in July 2014.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest says a House committee’s assertion that the military was too slow to respond to the attack on the consulate in Benghazi has already been “debunked”.
Clinton’s own response to the Republican’s witch hunt is worth watching, as it offers her a chance to prove what she is: human.
One of the panel’s most revealing discoveries was Clinton’s use of a private email server at the State Department, a revelation that has dogged her presidential campaign and prompted an FBI investigation.
The former secretary of state said at a campaign event in Denver that the report involved more than two years and $7 million but “found nothing, nothing to contradict” the findings of earlier investigations.
Along with the State Department and the military, the CIA missed the looming threat despite warnings and wrote faulty intelligence reports after the attack, according to the report.
A previous report investigating the attacks did not specify the month Clinton was looking to travel to Libya.
“So I’ll leave it to others to characterize this report, but I think it’s pretty clear, it’s time to move on”. Republicans have accused Clinton of deliberately misleading the public about the reasons for the attacks on the US mission in Benghazi.
“None of the relevant military forces met their required deployment timelines”, the Republicans, headed by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), concluded in its 800-page report.
Asked today about the politics of the committee – specifically whether he agrees with the rallying cry “Hillary lied, people died” – Gowdy deflected, insisting that the panel’s work was never about her in particular.
“The assets ultimately deployed by the Defense Department in response to the Benghazi attacks were not positioned to arrive before the final lethal attack”, the committee report said.
A 2012 report by a government accountability review board faulted State Department officials for providing “grossly” insufficient security in Benghazi, despite upgrade requests from Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and others in Libya. He says reading it “pillar to post” would take less time than Americans spent fighting for their lives that night.
Democrats, in their Monday report, highlighted the testimony of Pentagon officials who said diplomatic clearances were not necessary and emails mentioning them did not slow the response. She said their report spells out a failure in American foreign policy.
The latest investigation has been used by Republicans to attack Clinton’s national-security credentials.
In a separate report also released on Tuesday, Benghazi Committee members Reps.
Regardless of the political theatre and partisan ammunition the Benghazi attacks have provided, the one agreed upon point from both sides-the lax security at the diplomatic compound-has resulted in some good news.
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While the panel’s GOP members took shots at Clinton on Tuesday, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the chairman, summed up the document by asking “the American people to read this report for themselves, look at the evidence we have collected and reach their own conclusions”.
