The House Intelligence Committee is among the many congressional panels to investigate the deadly attack on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi in 2012, and its findings are reportedly complete. The committee’s report is not yet available, but Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) talked to the San Francisco Chronicle about the results of the inquiry.
The House Intelligence Committee, led by Republicans, has concluded that there was no deliberate wrongdoing by the Obama administration in the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, said Rep. Mike Thompson of St. Helena, the second-ranking Democrat on the committee. […]Thompson said the report “confirms that no one was deliberately misled, no military assets were withheld and no stand-down order (to U.S. forces) was given.”
The committee agreed Thursday to declassify its report, nearly two years in the making, and the findings will reportedly be available to the public once it’s cleared by intelligence agencies.
Just so we’re clear, this is a Republican-led committee, with GOP members outnumbering Democrats, 12 to 9.
And according to the Chronicle‘s report, the committee’s findings are consistent with everything reality has told us all along: “There was no ‘stand-down order’ given to American personnel attempting to offer assistance that evening, no illegal activity or illegal arms transfers occurring by U.S. personnel in Benghazi, and no American was left behind.”
What’s more, the Obama administration’s process for developing “talking points” was “flawed, but the talking points reflected the conflicting intelligence assessments in the days immediately following the crisis.”
It would appear some Republican lawmakers who’ve spent 23 months screaming the exact opposite owe the public an explanation for why they were wrong.
Taken together, the deadly violence in Benghazi two years ago has now been investigated by the House Intelligence Committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee, the independent State Department Accountability Review Board, the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the House Armed Services Committee, the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform, and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
How many of them uncovered evidence of a cover-up? None.
It’s against this backdrop that House Republicans have decided what’s really needed is … another committee. It will cost taxpayers several million dollars, and according to the committee’s leadership, the goal is to ask questions that have already been answered.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."