In an 800-page report released on Tuesday, the Republican-led committee, which has battled allegations of bias since it was instituted two year ago, faulted the Obama administration for failing to anticipate growing security risks, despite an abundance of signs and indications, and to prepare for them.
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Clinton has said in public testimony – before House and Senate panels in 2013 and in the marathon hearing last October – that she took responsibility for the State Department’s handling of Benghazi by “moving quickly in those first uncertain hours” to respond to the immediate crisis and then, in the aftermath, by launching an independent investigation to find out what happened and “to recommend steps for improvement”.
Perhaps the most lasting impact of the committee’s investigation was the revelation that Secretary Clinton used a private email server during her time at the State Department. The Sept. 11, 2012, attacks, which killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, have been pointed to by Republicans as a major failure by the Obama administration and by Clinton during her tenure leading the State Department.
In a press conference on June 28, 2016, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Hillary Clinton deliberately misled the public on Benghazi.
House Republicans released a report on the USA consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans including a US ambassador. “Not a single wheel of a single US military asset had even turned toward Libya”.
The Republican report provides evidence that many within the administration knew early on that it had in fact been a planned “terrorist attack”, even as others were painting it as an isolated response to a specific provocation.
USA military leaders told the committee they thought an evacuation was imminent, slowing any response. Officials reported eight acts of violence, either in Benghazi or at other diplomatic missions around the globe in the months leading up to the September 11 attacks.
The report found that Libyan military officers loyal to former leader Moammar Gadhafi, whom the USA had helped depose, had taken part in rescuing the remaining Americans.
Toner also disputed one of the report’s claims that a security team sat on a plane in Rota, Spain, for three hours and that team members changed in and out of their uniforms four times.
Military leaders have testified repeatedly that they didn’t have intelligence information on what was happening or the resources on alert to respond in time to the attacks, which occurred at two separate locations over 13 hours.
The minority Democrats on the panel released their own report of the incident on Monday in an effort to rebut the majority’s conclusions and protect Clinton’s political fortunes less than five months before she expects to face Trump, a billionaire real estate mogul, in November’s national presidential election.
And it questions whether justice was ever served for the attacks, saying only one man – Ahmed Abu Khatallah – has been indicted and brought to the U.S.to face charges in the attacks despite nearly four years passing.
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. The statement added: “Republicans promised a process and report that was fair and bipartisan, but this is exactly the opposite”.
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House Benghazi Committee Democrats: Military could have done nothing differently that would have prevented the attack.
