Democrats on the panel released a report Monday saying that while the State Department’s security measures in Benghazi, Libya, the night of Sept. 11, 2012 were “woefully inadequate,” then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton never personally turned down a request for additional security and the military couldn’t have done anything differently that night to save the lives of four Americans.
In this Oct. 22, 2015, file photo, Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington before the House Select Committee on Benghazi. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
In this Oct. 22, 2015, file photo, Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington before the House Select Committee on Benghazi. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, including former Navy SEALs Ty Woods and Glen Doherty, were killed in the Benghazi attacks.
But Fox News said it reviewed portions of the GOP report and noted one U.S. agent at the Benghazi compound — whose name was withheld for security reasons — told the select committee he first heard “some kind of chanting” immediately followed by “explosions” and “gunfire, then roughly 70 people rushing into the compound with an assortment of “AK-47s, grenades, RPG’s … a couple of different assault rifles.”
A senior watch officer at the State Department’s diplomatic security command called it “a full on attack against our compound,” Fox News said, citing the GOP report. That officer also was asked if he saw or heard a protest before the attacks and answered, “zip, nothing, nada.”
“None of the information coming directly from the agents on the ground in Benghazi during the attacks mentioned anything about a video or a protest,” the report said, according to Fox News. “The firsthand accounts made their way to the office of the Secretary through multiple channels quickly …”
In this Sept. 12, 2012, file photo, glass, debris and overturned furniture are strewn inside a room in the gutted U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, after an attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. (AP Photo/Ibrahim Alaguri, File)
In this Sept. 12, 2012, file photo, glass, debris and overturned furniture are strewn inside a room in the gutted U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, after an attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. (AP Photo/Ibrahim Alaguri, File)
The GOP committee report noted a White House meeting — which included deputies to senior Cabinet members and Clinton — held about three hours into the attack:
Five of the 10 action items from the 7:30 PM White House meeting referenced the video, but no direct link or solid evidence existed connecting the attacks in Benghazi and the video at the time the meeting took place. The State Department senior officials at the meeting had access to eyewitness accounts to the attack in real time. The Diplomatic Security Command Center was in direct contact with the Diplomatic Security Agents on the ground in Benghazi and sent out multiple updates about the situation, including a “Terrorism Event Notification.” The State Department Watch Center had also notified Jake Sullivan and Cheryl Mills that it had set up a direct telephone line to Tripoli. There was no mention of the video from the agents on the ground. Greg Hicks—one of the last people to talk to Chris Stevens before he died—said there was virtually no discussion about the video in Libya leading up to the attacks.
After the meeting, Clinton issued a statement noting “inflammatory material posted on the Internet” as a catalyst for the attack — even though she told Egypt’s prime minister the next day that “we know that the attacks in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack — not a protest.”
More from Fox News:
Kansas GOP Rep. Mike Pompeo, a Benghazi committee member, told Fox News in advance of the report’s release that the report is new and significant because it’s the first to include interviews from “everybody on the ground” in Benghazi.
Pompeo also said the findings show “it’s unambiguous the administration knew immediately it was a terror attack. And the story of fog of war was known to be false immediately by everyone in the administration.”
Also interviewed by the committee was Ben Rhodes, the president’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, who prepped then-United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice for her Sunday talk show appearances days after the attack during which she touted the video as the culprit.
A Sept. 14, 2012 memo from Rhodes included the subject line: “RE: PREP Call with Susan: Saturday at 4:00 pm ET,” Fox News reported. The email noted goals ”to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video and not a broader failure of policy” and “to reinforce the President and Administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges,” Fox News added.
The Rhodes email was a catalyst for the Select Committee and first obtained by Judicial Watch through a federal court lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act, the network said.
Rhodes was the same official who approved Clinton’s statement the night of the attack linking the video to Benghazi, Fox News added.
(Photo credit should read STR/AFP/GettyImages)
(Photo credit should read STR/AFP/GettyImages)
Here are several other top “revelations” made in the GOP report:
• Despite President Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s clear orders to deploy military assets, nothing was sent to Benghazi, and nothing was en route to Libya at the time the last two Americans were killed almost 8 hours after the attacks began. [pg. 141]
• With Ambassador Stevens missing, the White House convened a roughly two-hour meeting at 7:30 PM, which resulted in action items focused on a YouTube video, and others containing the phrases “[i]f any deployment is made,” and “Libya must agree to any deployment,” and “[w]ill not deploy until order comes to go to either Tripoli or Benghazi.” [pg. 115]
[...]
• A Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST) sat on a plane in Rota, Spain, for three hours, and changed in and out of their uniforms four times. [pg. 154]
• None of the relevant military forces met their required deployment timelines. [pg. 150]
You can find a full summary of the final report’s revelations here.
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 Associated Press contributed to this story.