Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top aide ignored growing dangers at the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, as intelligence existed indicating an attack on the facility was possible, according to a report by the House Benghazi Select Committee, which released its 800-page analysis Tuesday.
“It is not clear what additional intelligence would have satisfied either [Patrick] Kennedy or the Secretary in understanding the Benghazi mission compound was at risk — short of an attack,” reads the section.
The report, which details the committee’s official assessment of Clinton and the Obama administration’s handling of the terror attack that killed four Americans, was issued by the Republicans on the committee — the majority — after a two-year probe that cost upward of $7 million.
The report states that US officials did not order military assets to be deployed to help the Americans under attack in Libya.
The Sept.,11, 2012, attack by Islamic militants killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, Foreign Service officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty.
Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, the panel’s chairman, said: “Nothing was en route to Libya at the time the last two Americans were killed almost eight hours after the attacks began.”
He said the Libyan forces that evacuated Americans from the CIA annex were not affiliated with any of the militias the CIA or State Department had developed a relationship with during the previous 18 months.
“What was disturbing from the evidence the Committee found was that at the time of the final lethal attack at the Annex, no asset ordered deployed by the Secretary had even left the ground,” the report found.
“Not a single asset had launched, save the military personnel from Tripoli who did so on their own accord and whose presence no one in Washington seemed aware of when discussing which assets to deploy. Nothing was on its way to Benghazi as a result of the Secretary’s initial order to deploy,” according to the report.
Republicans on the committee are divided over whether to directly blame Clinton.
Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas called Clinton’s actions “morally reprehensible,” saying “you have every right to be disgusted” by the response from her and others.
But Gowdy said he’s not “in the business of apportioning culpability.”
Pressed on whether he endorses the GOP bumper-sticker slogan that “Hillary Lied, People Died” Gowdy said: “You don’t see that T-shirt on me, you haven’t seen that bumper sticker on any of my vehicles.”
When asked if Clinton lied, the former prosecutor added. “That’s a word you couldn’t use in a courtroom.”
Committee Republicans who unveiled the report at a news conference at the Capitol implored Americans to read it.
Gowdy said reading it “pillar to post” would take less time than Americans spent fighting for their lives that night.
The Department of Defense and State Department were too busy determining whether Marines should wear uniforms or civilian clothing to deploy the assets in time, according to the findings.
The report also found that no one in Benghazi attributed the attack to a “video” or “protest,” even though US officials after the attack used those words to explain the attack.
“None of the Diplomatic Security agents on the ground reported anything about a protest in Benghazi. None of the Diplomatic Security agents on the ground reported anything about a video,” the report said.
By contrast, just five days after the attack, then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice told “Fox News Sunday,” “What sparked the recent violence was the airing on the Internet of a very hateful, very offensive video that has offended many people around the world.”
The report shows that officials in the Obama administration had two timelines of the attack: one they shared publicly, and another they circulated only among among themselves.
“The timeline reinforces in a compelling way what will be one of the most significant takeaways from the committee investigation,” according to the Weekly Standard’s Stephen F. Hayes, “The Obama administration knowingly provided the American people a false story about the Benghazi attack, its causes and its consequences.”
For instance, the report notes that on the day of the attack, Clinton said publicly, “I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in Benghazi today…Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet.”
Privately, Clinton blamed the attack to a terror group, Ansar al-Sharia, in a phone call with Libya President Mohammed al Magariaf: “[O]ur diplomatic mission was attacked[.] . . . [T]here is a gun battle ongoing, which I understand Ansar as-Sharia [sic] is claiming responsibility for.”
Gowdy dismissed Democrats’ attempts to cast the probe as “overzealous” and a chance to tarnish Clinton.
He targeted Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the committee’s highest-ranking Democrat, for describing him as a “overzealous prosecutor desperately trying to land a front-page conviction rather than a neutral judge of facts seeking to improve the security of our diplomatic corps,” the Washington Times reported.
“If anyone would recognize an overzealous prosecutor it would be someone from Baltimore,” Gowdy said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” in an apparent reference to Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s failed drive to prosecute officers in the death of Freddie Gray.
“I will tell you that up front. Secondarily, he hasn’t read the report,” Gowdy said.
Gowdy said Democrats will be “shocked” if they read the report.
“It is a series of heroic acts by our fellow Americans and what we can do to prevent the next [attack],” Gowdy said. “Yes, Hillary Clinton was the secretary of state at the time. I can’t get around that fact. But the focus of this report is on exactly what the families asked us to focus on, and shame on the Democrats for figuring that out two years too late.”
Clinton is not the only US official to look bad in the report. The day after the terror attack, President Obama declined even to receive his intelligence briefing, the Weekly Standard reports.
Additionally, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff skipped a key White House meeting during the attack in order to go home to host a dinner party for foreign dignitaries.
Democrats released their own report Monday, challenging what they described as the GOP’s politically motivated critique.
Clinton downplayed the report.
Spokesman Brian Fallon said in a statement the report has “not found anything to contradict the conclusions of the multiple, earlier investigations.”
He said that’s evidence the panel’s main goal was to politicize the four deaths “in order to try to attack the Obama administration and hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”
Fallon said the way in which the committee released the report shows the GOP members of the committee “are clearly seeking to avoid any fact-checking of their discredited conspiracy theories.”
Where does Clinton stand on the big issues? That depends on when she is asked: