Democratic members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi published their final report on the investigation into the Sept. 11, 2012, terror attack Monday, front-running the findings from committee Republicans that are expected to be released within days.
The 339-page report was accompanied by the unclassified versions of transcripts from interviews with dozens of witnesses involved in the handling of the attack.
Democrats vowed their report would highlight “abuses” from Chairman Trey Gowdy and panel Republicans who probed the circumstances surrounding Benghazi for more than two years.
The minority report, entitled “Honoring Courage, Improving Security, and Fighting the Exploitation of a Tragedy,” argued committee Republicans wasted resources to reach a conclusion similar to those of other congressional panels.
“Although the select committee obtained additional details that provide context and granularity, these details do not fundamentally alter the previous conclusions,” the Democrats wrote in their report.
Led by ranking Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, the minority concluded no military assets could have reached the diplomatic compound in Benghazi in time to spare the four Americans who died the night of Sept. 11, 2012.
Despite compelling evidence released so far by committee Republicans, Democrats concluded an inflammatory YouTube clip may have been the impetus behind the attack.
“[I]t remains unclear to this day precisely what motivated all of the individuals in Benghazi on the night of the attacks,” the report said.
The Democrats cited a portion of testimony from retired Gen. David Petraeus, former head of the CIA, to demonstrate the uncertainty surrounding the catalyst for the attack.
“I’m still not absolutely certain what absolutely took place, whether it was a mix of people that are demonstrating with attackers in there, whether this is an organized demonstration to launch an attack,” Petraeus said in his closed-door interview.
The minority report quoted lengthy passages from Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan, two of Hillary Clinton’s top aides at the State Department, to illustrate the level of engagement Clinton displayed as the attacks were underway.
Mills and Sullivan told committee members they had observed Clinton scrambling to communicate with White House and State Department officials as the administration attempted to piece together what was happening on the ground in Benghazi.
Republicans have argued Clinton and the White House knew almost immediately that the violence had been planned well in advance by Islamic extremists, but high-level officials chose to characterize the attack as a spontaneous demonstration that had spun out of control when they addressed the public in the aftermath of the raid.
Both Republicans and Democrats appeared to agree on the inadequacy of security at the temporary mission facility in Benghazi, where Ambassador Chris Stevens had traveled days before the attack.
Matt Wolking, a spokesman for committee Republicans, said Monday the publication of the report proved Democrats had only ever been interested in shielding Clinton’s reputation.
“For over two years, they refused to participate in the majority’s serious, fact-centered investigation,” Wolking said of the minority.
“The dishonest Democrats on this committee falsely claimed everything had been ‘asked and answered.’ They said the committee had found ‘absolutely nothing new.’ If that’s changed, they should come clean and admit it,” Wolking said. “If not, everyone can ignore their rehashed, partisan talking points defending their endorsed candidate for president.”
Committee Republicans pointed as evidence of the focus on Clinton to the fact that her name appears 334 times in the report while Stevens’ name appears just 85 times.
“As Chairman Gowdy has said, this is not about one person. This investigation is about the four brave Americans we lost in Libya: Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glen Doherty,” Wolking said. “That is how the majority has conducted its thorough investigation, and we look forward to revealing the new information we have uncovered to the families and the American people.”
Below are some of the highlights from the minority report, which is sure to inject even more partisan vitriol into an already contentious topic in the House.
Sidney Blumenthal
Panel Democrats argued Republicans had leaked deceptive excerpts of emails written by Sidney Blumenthal, an informal advisor to Clinton while she served as secretary of state.
“[T]he release appeared to target Secretary Clinton for political reasons,” the report said.
The Democrats then published an entirely redacted snippet of Blumenthal’s testimony before the committee, arguing that Benghazi Republicans were blocking the publication of the transcript.
However, the minority published parts of dozens of other witness interviews in the report.
Democrats noted they had pushed for a vote on the release of the Blumenthal transcripts last summer, but the vote had failed to greenlight publication.
Talking points
Minority members said they had not encountered documents or testimony that proved the administration’s talking points, in which an inflammatory YouTube clip was blamed for the attack, had been fabricated for political reasons.
“Not a single witness appearing before the select committee identified evidence that intelligence assessments or CIA talking points provided to Congress and Ambassador [Susan] Rice were influenced by political considerations,” the report said.
Rice took fire after she appeared on five political talk shows and pinned the Benghazi raid on a protest rather than a premeditated terrorist attack.
The minority report quoted CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell, who testified before the committee that his analysts had identified “a dozen or so sources that suggested to them, told them there was a protest.”
Military response
No military assets could have reached Benghazi in time to save the four Americans who died in the attack, the Democrats concluded.
They quoted a portion of then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s testimony, in which he said:
“There was no question in my mind that, at least from my perspective, everything possible had been done to try to do what we could to save those lives. I’ve never had a question—I never had a question then and I don’t even have a question now that we did everything possible to try to see if we could save lives, in line with the president’s order.”
Other excerpts of witness testimony underscored the Democrats’ argument that the Pentagon had done everything in its power to reach Benghazi.
The question of whether the Department of Defense truly made every effort to reach the Americans under siege in Benghazi is expected to be central to the majority’s report.
