The report from House Select Committee on Benghazi, chaired by Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of SC, comes after two years and $7 million was spent, and after Clinton endured an 11 hour grilling by Republican committee members that was seen by many as boosting, rather than hurting, the former Secretary of State’s presidential chances.
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House Benghazi Committee Republicans: No new evidence that Clinton, secretary of state at the time of the attack, is to blame for the facility’s vulnerability or the USA response to the attacks.
A damning report authored by the Republican-led House committee probing the Benghazi terror attacks faulted the Obama administration for a range of missteps before, during and after the fatal 2012 attacks – saying top administration officials huddled to craft their public response while military assets waited hours to deploy to Libya.
“After more than two years and more than $7 million in taxpayer funds, the Committee report has not found anything to contradict the conclusions of the multiple, earlier investigations”, Clinton’s presidential campaign said in a statement about the report.
Democrats on the committee were not allowed to co-author this new report, but issued their own findings Monday: a 339-page report they say dispels “conspiracy theories” about the attack. Instead, the administration officials were characterizing changing intelligence reports, the Democrats claim.
While the Defense Department ordered military assets to deploy to the consulate, the report says that conflicting orders from the State Department about whether the forces should wear military or civilian attire delayed any such deployment.
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.
Clinton’s campaign dismissed the report as a partisan effort to derail her candidacy, arguing that the committee had not found anything that had not been discovered by previous congressional probes.
Democrats, many of whom opposed even creating the investigatory committee, have maintained that no military forces could have possibly responded in time about an imminent attack on the diplomatic consulate.
The report also questions why Clinton felt it necessary to have an embassy in Benghazi despite mounting evidence that the mission was risky.
So, in a report bashing Republicans for politicizing the deadly attack, Democrats further politicized it by bringing the GOP presumptive presidential nominee into the mix.
The report also found that no US military assets ever left the ground to try to get to Benghazi during the 13-hour siege. “If not, everyone can ignore their rehashed, partisan talking points defending their endorsed candidate for president”. The two conflicting reports mean there won’t be a clear conclusion, but at least Congress can stop wasting time and money bickering about it.
The review board portrayed a total system breakdown in the Benghazi attacks: an inadequate number of security agents: a lack of protective equipment; and officials who failed to appreciate and craft a response to the city’s rapidly deteriorating security situation.
The analysis includes some explicit criticism of Clinton that is likely to be fuel presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump’s charges that she is responsible for the deaths in the attack, which was first thought to be a protest but then proven to be a terrorist assault.
The Democrats said that the “assessments and information” that the CIA and other intelligence agencies provided to USA government officials “evolved” after the attacks but were not influenced by the upcoming 2012 presidential election or any other political factors.
“She lies about emails; she lies about the Clinton Foundation; she lies about secret meetings in the State Department with donors; she lies about deals that are cut; she lies about her speeches to Goldman Sachs; and, by the way, she lies about Benghazi”.
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Democrats aren’t going to play the GOP’s Benghazi games.
