House Benghazi Report Finds No New Evidence of Wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton

[TomCADem]

Source: NY Times

Ending one of the longest, costliest and most bitterly partisan congressional investigations in history, the House Select Committee on Benghazi issued its final report on Tuesday, finding no new evidence of culpability or wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton in the 2012 attacks in Libya that left four Americans dead.

The 800-page report, however, included some new details about the night of the attacks, and the context in which it occurred, and it delivered a broad rebuke of government agencies like the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department — and the officials who led them — for failing to grasp the acute security risks in the Libyan city, and especially for maintaining outposts in Benghazi that they could not protect.

The committee, led by Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, also harshly criticized an internal State Department investigation that it said had allowed officials like Mrs. Clinton, then the secretary of state, to effectively choose who would investigate their actions. In addition, it reiterated Republicans’ complaints that the Obama administration had sought to thwart the investigation by withholding witnesses and evidence.

The report, however, did not dispute that United States military forces stationed in Europe could not have reached Benghazi in time to rescue the personnel who died — a central finding of previous inquiries.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/us/politics/hillary-clinton-benghazi.html?_r=0

[tonyt53]

1. In other words, Hillary told them the truth.

[riversedge]

4. What is this? the 7th or 8th congressional report in which she did that???

[mpcamb]

26. "Report Finds No New Evidence of Wrongdoing". What did it cost us to find this out?

Just wondering.

[riversedge]

2. Umm. Interesting--there is a separate 48 pg addendum with harsher criticism

of the Obama Administration. My guess is that Fox news will use this 48 pageer as the official report. damn!


....And in a sign that Mr. Gowdy was also facing pressure from the right, two of the committee’s conservative members, Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mike Pompeo of Kansas, wrote a 48-page addendum including somewhat harsher criticism of the Obama administration, its response to the attacks and its subsequent public explanations.

“Officials at the State Department, including Secretary Clinton, learned almost in real time that the attack in Benghazi was a terrorist attack,” Mr. Jordan and Mr. Pompeo wrote. “With the presidential election just 56 days away, rather than tell the American people the truth and increase the risk of losing an election, the administration told one story privately and a different story publicly.”

Technically, the report is not final until the full committee formally votes to accept it, but with the Republican majority firmly in support there is little doubt it will do so at a hearing scheduled for July 8. Still, some changes are possible, if they are accepted and approved by a majority vote.

[librechik]

5. so there's the facts, and then 48 pages of ungrounded opinion. Guess which will get airplay. n/t

[OnDoutside]

9. SO Gowdy now admits that the Ambassador and his colleague couldn't have been saved. Dead in 15mins.

[librechik]

3. funny--none of these Rs on TV have mentioned that-- or the fact that THEY CUT THE FUNDS

to Benghazi security budget. NOT OBAMA

[DemonGoddess]

6. ^^^This!!!

I'm waiting to see how long it takes 'em to make yet ANOTHER Benghazi committee. You know it's coming.

[charlyvi]

7. This will hardly make a blip on the radar.

Gowdy severely overplayed his hand on this. The longest Congressional investigation EVER.....millions of dollars wasted, all to reveal no more than the prior seven investigations' findings. This committee was beneath contempt, and the American public should be very angry at this longest, most expensive political hit job in history.

[bucolic_frolic]

8. OMG!

Trey Gowdy and his House Committee have been infiltrated and are now
part of the conspiracy too! The Benghazi Disease is spreading! How will
we ever learn the truth?

[thesquanderer]

10. No NEW evidence of Hillary wrong-doing? What OLD evidence is there?

Why not simply say NO EVIDENCE?

Headline should be more like:

"House Final Benghazi Report Concludes No Evidence of Wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton"

[LynneSin]

12. Better yet "House Final Benghazi Report Concludes....

the GOP love wasting our Tax Dollars on witch hunts"

[LynneSin]

11. Again another reason why I have no problem voting for Hillary

24 years of trying to find SOMETHING to indict her and yet all we have done was waste taxdollars.

[librechik]

18. +1

is it ok to say that here yet?

[calimary]

13. Seems as though, if there's any finger-pointing, they've aimed it much more at the Pentagon,

not the State Department so much.

They TOTALLY tried to hang Hillary with this. They even said so. Kevin McCarthy flat-out stated, early on, and proudly so, that it was to try to lower her public opinion numbers in advance of her running for President. It was a big enough blunder that he eventually had to withdraw from consideration for Speaker of the House!

I'm watching one of these CONS (Mike Pompeo) complaining about how they were SO OBSTRUCTED!!! WAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!! MAN, that's rich.

CNN's Dana Bash just asked - does this mean "you don't have 'the goods'" in this report (to lambaste Hillary Clinton). And Zippy the Pinhead (OOPS! I mean trey gowdy) kept falling back on "read the report."

But so far, everything I've heard said and dissected and commented about it so far seems to point a far more critical finger at the military. At the Pentagon.

[rdking647]

14. if you read the faux new headline

you'd think the report rips apart hillary.
of course we all know faux news is a branch of teh GOP it should be renames fox-tass

[Wounded Bear]

15. I think the Democrats forced their hand...

by releasing their 'minority report' yesterday. The Repubs were almost forced to release this now, and not wait for their 48 page attack addendum to get folded in. Now, when that is released it will look like more piling on.

Perhaps they are starting to realize that their actions, while pumping up a shrinking base, are not very convincing to the general public who will vote this November. In this as in many things the more the public sees, the worse they look.

[malthaussen]

16. Cool! Let's start another investigation!

We'll get to the bottom of this eventually.

-- Mal

[Phentex]

25. We must spend more money!

We need to investigate the first investigation.

[Motley13]

17. Gowdy is still yammering & saying 0 new

A reporter asks a question & the best he can come up with is "read the report"

One of the reps said
Bad Hillary at 1st said it was because of the video, annnnd 1 hour later said it was terrorism. Isn't that how things develop, you find out more information.

Look at all the time wasted on this, bringing more pain back to the families for purely political reasons which they keep denying. Cost 7 mil $

They must keep attacking Hillary to avoid doing the job they were elected for. Seems like 11 hours of testimony would have settled it.

Amazing how, "its not political, not about 1 person" and always goes back to the secy of state.

End result, they need to review security, duh

[Motley13]

19. Isn't it about time to repeal Obamacare again?

n/t

[yellowcanine]

20. So a 7 million dollar SHINY turd from Trey Gowdy.

[rurallib]

21. Thought sure this was supposed to be their "October Surprise"

with a lot of innuendo and no facts.

Every Republican in the House needs to be hung with wasting our money on this travesty

[Bradical79]

29. I suspect they couldn't find a way to stretch it out

I feel like they were banking on finding something truly damning through the emails. Democrats on the comitee calling them out with their own detailed report on the comitee forced their hand.

[Cryptoad]

22. This is ur GOP at Work

,,,,, btw take notice all u who think there is no difference between the Parties !

[Scientific]

23. Headline should read: Republicans Squander Taxpayer Dollars on Political Hatchet Job

Freaking Republicans, need to do something for America at least once.

This is so pathetic.

[Johnyawl]

30. 7 million dollars of tax payer money on a hatchet job...

...and didn't even come close to hitting their intended target. An amazing display of partisanship and incompetence.

[DCBob]

24. RW talkshow said the big story from the report was something to do with Marines changing clothes??

[DonRedwood]

27. Kr

[fbc]

28. This should be a huge scandal

The republicans spent enormous amounts of money on something that everyone, including the members of the press, knew were a pack of nebulous accusations with no basis in reality.

This should be a huge scandal. But it won't get even a tiny fraction of the attention received by the bogus accusations.

[nest]

31. Another right-wing witch hunt is debunked

Hillary did the best she could in Libya and I think she accomplished her goal there. Qaddafi is gone and although the current situation over there is rocky, that is to be expected with any new democracy.

[sarcasmo]

32. Kick

[Beacool]

33. Republicans wasted $7M of taxpayers' money. It's malfeasance.

They should be forced to payback the money of the GOP's coffers.

Bunch of hypocrites!!!

[Night Watchman]

34. Thanks for the Fiscal Responsibility, G.O.Peckerheads!

Now that you've completed this Grand Exercise In Democracy, why not get together with your Senate counterparts and start pushing for a new war to put on the credit card?