The House’s two-year long investigation into the Benghazi attacks has concluded, finding “no intelligence failure.” What will the GOP do now?
A House Select Committee run by Republicans and created to investigate the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya has concluded, and its findings debunk and decimate a myriad of Tea Party conspiracy theories. The 36-page report, published and released Friday evening states there was “no intelligence failure,” in sharp contrast to years of lies and false claims disseminated by GOP grass roots activists, conservative social media addicts, Republican operatives, and even elected Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.Â
On September 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed during the attacks in Benghazi.
“Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria,” the AP reports.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, intelligence about who carried it out and why was contradictory, the report found. That led Susan Rice, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to inaccurately assert that the attack had evolved from a protest, when in fact there had been no protest. But it was intelligence analysts, not political appointees, who made the wrong call, the committee found. The report did not conclude that Rice or any other government official acted in bad faith or intentionally misled the American people.
To date, the Republicans have now completed seven separate investigation into the attacks in Benghazi. None have found any significant errors on the part of the Obama administration, the CIA, the State Department, or any other U.S. government agency. Despite that, Republicans began an eighth investigation in May of this year, which is headed by GOP Rep. Trey Goudy. To date, it has had one hearing.
Today’s report, released on a Friday night before Thanksgiving week, clearly should put to rest all of the lies, conspiracy theories, and other attacks on President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It states it is “the definitive House statement on the Intelligence Community’s activities before, during, and after the tragic events” of Benghazi.
The report by House Republican Select Committee Chairman Mike Rogers lists 17 separate findings, including the intelligence community had no advance warning of the Sept. 11 attacks and no stand-down order had been given – two false claims Tea Party activists have been vehemently peddling, with the aid of Fox News, for years.
It is unknown how many millions of tax dollars have been spent in the GOP-led investigations of the events surrounding the attacks in Benghazi, but one report shows the eighth and as yet unfinished House Benghazi Panel led by Rep. Goudy has been allocated $3.3 million for seven months of work.
“For over two years, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence exhaustively investigated the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi Libya,” a joint statement by Chairman Rogers and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger. “We spent thousands of hours asking questions, poring over documents, reviewing intelligence assessments, reading cables and emails, and held a total of 20 Committee events and hearings. We conducted detailed interviews with senior intelligence officials from Benghazi and Tripoli as well as eight security personnel on the ground in Benghazi that night. Based on the testimony and the documents we reviewed, we concluded that all the CIA officers in Benghazi were heroes. Their actions saved lives.”
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