Dems release Benghazi report to counter Republican inquiry
WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Monday moved to pre-empt the findings of a two-year Republican-led investigation into the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed, by issuing their own 339-page report that casts the inquiry as a politically motivated crusade that wasted time and money.
The release of the Democrats’ report came amid signs that the House Select Committee on Benghazi, led by its chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., was nearing the release of its official findings.
In the face of intense criticism, Gowdy repeatedly has defended the committee’s work as the most comprehensive examination of the attacks in Benghazi, which occurred on Sept. 11, 2012, and resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens; a State Department official, Sean Smith; and two CIA contractors, Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty.
Obstruction charges
In recent days, the committee has reiterated longstanding complaints about lack of cooperation with the investigation by the Obama administration, including a statement by Gowdy on Monday citing obstruction by the State Department. The committee has also cited the refusal by the White House to have President Barack Obama respond to written questions.
“For nearly a year and a half, the State Department has withheld documents and information about Benghazi and Libya from the American people’s elected representatives in Congress,” Gowdy said in the statement. “Whatever the administration is hiding, its justifications for doing so are imaginary and appear to be invented for the sake of convenience. That’s not how complying with a congressional subpoena works, and it’s well past time the department stops stonewalling.”
In their counternarrative, the Democrats serving on the Select Committee said they had been virtually shut out of the process of developing the report, and they accused their Republican counterparts of trying to besmirch Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, who was secretary of state during the Benghazi attack.
The Democrats’ report included praise for U.S. personnel in Benghazi and Tripoli, the Libyan capital, saying they “conducted themselves with extraordinary courage and heroism,” and determined that the U.S. personnel could not have saved the four who died.
The report includes some criticism: “The State Department’s security measures in Benghazi were woefully inadequate as a result of decisions made by officials in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.” But it absolves Clinton of responsibility, adding, “Secretary Clinton never personally denied any requests for additional security in Benghazi.”
A House divided
The Democrats accused the Republicans of spending more than $7 million on an investigation that they argued would not reveal any substantially new information that would alter the understanding of events as described in multiple previous inquiries.
The Republicans sharply dismissed the Democrats’ report Monday, turning the main Democratic criticism around — saying they were overly focused on Clinton.
“Benghazi Committee Democrats’ obsession with the former secretary of state is on full display,” the committee’s press secretary, Matt Wolking, said in a statement, which also accused the Democrats of issuing “rehashed, partisan talking points defending their endorsed candidate for president.”