“The fact is, we had four dead Americans,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton famously exploded during a January Senate hearing on the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks against the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. “Was it because of a protest or was it because some guys out for a walk one night who decided they would go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? “It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.”

Clinton’s outburst was portrayed afterward by the media as an example of her strength against Republican critics in Congress. But that narrative was rendered obsolete by testimony Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Operations Committee by a career U.S. diplomat posted in Libya during the assault. The first part of the answer to Clinton’s ringing question is now clear: The Obama administration’s ridiculous claim that the attacks were a response to an anti-Muslim YouTube video undermined U.S. efforts to figure out what actually happened.