
Hillary Clinton on Tuesday dismissed the findings of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, saying the panel’s 800-page report contained nothing that had not come to light through previous investigations.
Two years after the panel was formed and nearly four years since the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Clinton called for the issue to be settled.
{mosads}“I’ll leave it to others to characterize this report, but I think it’s pretty clear it’s time to move on,” she said in response to a question at an appearance in Denver.
“I understand that after more than two years and $7 million spent by the Benghazi Committee out of taxpayer funds, it had to today report it found nothing — nothing — to contradict the conclusions of the independent accountability board or the conclusion of the prior, multiple congressional investigations carried out on a bipartisan basis in the Congress,” Clinton added.
“So while this unfortunately took on a partisan tinge, I want us to stay focused on what I’ve always wanted us to stay focused on, and that is the important work of diplomacy and development.”
Earlier in the day, the presumptive Democratic nominee’s presidential campaign had attacked the GOP-led committee for proffering “discredited conspiracy theories” designed to attack Clinton’s campaign and the Obama administration.
The remarks from Clinton herself were slightly less accusatory but nonetheless made clear that she had little respect for the conclusions of the investigatory committee’s Republican leaders, in front of whom she testified for 11 hours last year.
“No one has thought more about or lost more sleep over the lives that we lost — the four Americans — which were devastating,” Clinton said. “And we owe it to those brave Americans to make sure that we learn the right lessons from this tragedy.”
The Benghazi Committee report did not provide new evidence that Clinton was personally responsible for 2012 attacks on a U.S. compound in Libya that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens, another State Department official and two CIA contractors.
But it did offer new details about the violence, as well as the lack of security at the site and the administration’s contradictory explanations to the public in the aftermath.
Among other points, the report accused Clinton and other State Department officials of ignoring warning signs before the violence and misleading the public afterward by blaming the attack on a YouTube video offensive to Muslims.
The report also attacked the Accountability Review Board (ARB) assembled by the State Department to investigate the incident.
Clinton’s senior staffers were deeply involved with the formation of that board and edited a draft version of its final report, the committee found.
“The decisions to deviate from longstanding processes raise questions about the ARB’s independence, thoroughness, and therefore the fullness of their findings of accountability,” it concluded.
David McCabe contributed to this report.
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