The House Select Committee on Benghazi recently published its final report after a 26-month investigation into the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on an American compound in Libya that resulted in the deaths of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
The report’s finding are rather embarrassing for Clinton. Investigators concluded that the former secretary of state was overly concerned with the political implications of pulling diplomatic staff out of Libya prior to the attack — despite numerous security threats — especially because she had pushed so hard for military intervention.
The report also accused the State Department of stalling efforts to rescue Americans during the terrorist attack by attempting to impose bizarre restrictions — insisting, for example, that U.S. military members involved in any rescue attempt wear civilian clothes and not use vehicles with U.S. markings on them.
Investigators also found that Hillary Clinton’s team of aides repeatedly thwarted the State Department’s own internal probe of the Benghazi attacks. A major reason why the congressional committee’s investigation took so long, they said, was that Clinton repeatedly stonewalled their efforts to acquire information.
In spite of these troubling findings, Clinton declared victory following the release of the report, saying: “I’ll leave it to others to characterize this report, but I think it’s pretty clear it’s time to move on.”
