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Clinton: 'Time to move on' from Benghazi report

<p>House Republicans will release Tuesday the long-awaited report detailing what led to the terrorist attacks that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, in Benghazi, Libya.</p><p>Prior to its release, several media outlets received portions of the report, prepared by the House <a href="http://benghazi.house.gov/" target="_blank">Select Committee on Benghazi</a>. According to CNN, there was available intelligence that "an attack was possible." NBC reports no military assets ordered by then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta were on their way to Benghazi at the time of the final attack.</p><p>The Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the American diplomatic mission and CIA compound killed Ambassador Stevens, two security contractors and a state department communications specialist.</p><p>The House <a href="http://benghazi.house.gov/" target="_blank">Select Committee on Benghazi</a> has been investigating the events surrounding the attacks, policies and decisions made by officials, including then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, since it was formed in 2014.</p><p>Democrats, who on Monday released their own <a href="http://democrats-benghazi.house.gov/sites/democrats.benghazi.house.gov/files/documents/Report_of_the_Benghazi_Select_Committee_Democratic_Members-Honoring_Courage_Improving_Security_and_Fighting_the_Exploitation_of_a_Tragedy.pdf#page=6" target="_blank">minority report</a>, have called the committee a "partisan ploy."</p><p>"What is impossible is for any reasonable person to continue denying that Republicans are squandering millions of taxpayer dollars on this abusive effort to derail Secretary Clinton's presidential campaign," said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) during the Oct. 22, 2015, hearing, which included Hillary Clinton's testimony.</p><p>Republicans have said the committee owes the victims and the American people the truth.</p><p>"The truth about what was happening and being discussed in Washington while our people were under attack. The truth about what led to the attack and the truth about what our government told the American people after the attacks," said select committee chair, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).</p><p>The report is expected to be hundreds of pages and include interviews with <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/benghazi-committee-releases-final-report/story?id=40171034" target="_blank">81 new witnesses</a>.</p><p><i>This video includes clips from </i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEuui34MRUw" target="_blank"><i>CNN</i></a><i>, </i><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/rep-trey-gowdys-benghazi-committee-opening-statement/" target="_blank"><i>CBS</i></a><i>, </i><i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABFWjZxCAAg" target="_blank">U.S. House of Representatives</a></i><i> and </i><i><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/06/28/house-gop-report-despite-eyewitness-accounts-clinton-administration-pushed-video-explanation-for-benghazi.html" target="_blank">Fox News</a></i><i> and images from Getty Images. Music provided courtesy of APM Music.</i></p><hr><b>Trending stories at <a href="http://www.newsy.com">Newsy.com</a></b><ul class="inline-related-links"><li><a href="http://www.newsy.com/videos/the-supreme-court-s-ruling-on-abortion-could-extend-beyond-texas/">The Supreme Court's Ruling On Abortion Could Extend Beyond Texas</a></li><li><a href="http://www.newsy.com/videos/former-virginia-governor-won-t-be-going-to-prison-at-least-for-now/">Former Virginia Governor Won't Be Going To Prison — At Least For Now</a></li><li><a href="http://www.newsy.com/videos/some-well-known-gop-members-are-skipping-the-national-convention/">Some Well-Known GOP Members Are Skipping The National Convention</a></li></ul>
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans on the House Benghazi Committee harshly faulted the Obama administration Tuesday for lax security and a slow response to the deadly 2012 attacks at the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Libya. But they produced no new allegations about then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The attacks, which killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, have been repeatedly cited by Republicans as a serious failure by the administration and by Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.

But the committee's 800-page report, released by Republican members, offered no "smoking gun" about Clinton's role. Rep. Trey Gowdy, the panel's chairman, has repeatedly said the report was not aimed at her, though Democrats have accused the committee's Republican majority of targeting her throughout.

Campaigning in Denver, Clinton said that it was "time to move on" and that the report had "found nothing, nothing to contradict the conclusions of the independent accountability board or the conclusions of the prior multiple earlier investigations."

The report from the two-year, $7 million investigation severely criticizes the military, CIA and administration officials for their response as the attacks unfolded the night of Sept. 11, 2012, and their subsequent explanation to the American people.

Eight hours after the two assaults began, "Not a single wheel of a single U.S. (military) asset had turned toward Libya," Gowdy, R-S.C.., told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference. "Think about that for a second."

He said military leaders told the committee that they thought an evacuation was imminent, slowing any response.

The Libya attacks became immediate political fodder, given their timing in the weeks before Obama's re-election, and that has not abated despite seven previous congressional investigations. There has been finger-pointing on both sides over security at the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi and whether the White House initially tried to portray the assault as a protest over an offensive, anti-Muslim video, instead of a calculated terrorist attack.

The GOP report offers no major revelations, but that won't quiet the criticism of Clinton from conservatives, likely Republican rival Donald Trump and other detractors. The committee interviewed more than 100 witnesses and reviewed some 75,000 pages of documents, but an almost accidental discovery by the panel last year has overshadowed Clinton's candidacy.

The committee disclosed that Clinton had used a private email server to conduct government business, a practice that is the subject of an FBI investigation.

There was division even among the panel's seven Republicans. Two of them, Mike Pompeo of Kansas and Jim Jordan of Ohio, wrote what amounts to a dissenting report that is far more scathing toward Clinton and Democrats generally.

Pompeo called Clinton's actions in the wake of the attacks "morally reprehensible," and he and Jordan said her public comments about the attacks differed sharply from her private assessments to members of her family and diplomats from other countries.

Gowdy said he was not prepared to pass judgment on Clinton and said that opinions about her do not appear in the panel's report.

"This is not about one person," he said.

Republican insistence that the investigation was not politically motivated was undermined last year when House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., suggested that the House committee could take credit for Clinton's then-slumping poll numbers. The remark contributed to McCarthy's failure to win election to House speaker.

The report documents that the U.S. was slow to send help to the Americans "because of an obsession with hurting the Libyans' feelings," Gowdy said. The report also portrays a "series of heroic acts" by Americans under attack.

Military leaders have testified repeatedly that they didn't have intelligence information on what was happening or the resources on alert to respond in time to the two attacks, hours apart.

Committee Democrats released their own report Monday saying that while the State Department's security measures in Benghazi that night were "woefully inadequate," Clinton never personally turned down a request for additional security. Democrats said the military could not have done anything differently that night to save the lives of the Americans.

On Tuesday, the panel's Democrats denounced the Republicans' report as "a conspiracy theory on steroids — bringing back long-debunked allegations with no credible evidence whatsoever." The statement added: "Republicans promised a process and report that was fair and bipartisan, but this is exactly the opposite."

The State Department also issued a statement Tuesday, saying that the "essential facts" of the attacks "have been known for some time," and have been the subject of numerous reviews, including one by an independent review board.

Spokesman Mark Toner said the department had implemented most of the recommendations of the independent review board and was continuing to expand security at its facilities and improve its threat assessment.