The Utah Republican says officials put lives in danger during Libya hearing by showing consulate in Benghazi.

But one official said “an extra foot of wall, or an extra-half dozen guards" would not have prevented disaster.

Rep. Cummings said that "since 2011, the House has cut embassy security by hundreds of millions of dollars."

Clinton won't be at Wednesday's hearing, but Issa said he could ask her to make a future appearance.

Your morning global affairs speed-read

Hillary Clinton's legacy as head of State is on the line as Republicans' top inquisitor, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), prepares to grill the department on security deficiencies in Libya ahead of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed four Americans in Benghazi.

In an early sign of the headaches ahead for the administration, top State Department officials who briefed reporters on the eve of the hearing distanced the agency from initial assessments that the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others grew out of a protest fueled by an anti-Islam video. “That was not our conclusion,” said one senior State Department official.

Meanwhile, congressional Democrats immediately sought to portray the hearing as a political ploy to hurt President Obama less than a month before the election, rather than an unbiased fact-finding effort.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is setting his sights on his biggest political target yet.

Officials refute initial administration statements, saying there was "nothing unusual" outside the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi before the attack.

Al Qaeda's Iraq cell has doubled the number of fighters within its ranks and the number of increasingly violent attacks against military and police targets in the year since U.S. forces left the country, according to the Pentagon. 

A quartet of Senate Republicans have set their sights on the intelligence community on Tuesday, demanding answers regarding the devastating terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya.