On Friday, the House Intelligence Committee released a report that concludes that the CIA “”ensured sufficient security for CIA facilities in Benghazi and … bravely assisted the State Department” on Sept. 11, 2012, during a deadly attack on U.S. facilities in Libya.”
So after nearly two years of conspiracy theories and thousands of hours of investigation, the GOP comes up with nothing.?The conclusion is that?”there was no intelligence failure prior to the attacks.”
From NPR:
In their summary of the 36-page report (which also has six appendixes), the report’s authors ? House committee Chairman Mike Rogers, a Republican, and ranking Democratic member C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger ? say that their panel “found no evidence that any officer was intimidated, wrongly forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement or otherwise kept from speaking to Congress, or polygraphed because of their presence in Benghazi.”
And in a statement that seems to take aim at a theory popularized by some media outlets, the report states, “The CIA was not collecting and shipping arms from Libya to Syria.”
The report isn’t without criticism. It is the GOP, after all. The committee found that the Temporary Mission Facility “was not well-protected” and ?”State Department security agents knew they could not defend it from a well-armed attack.”
The AP sums it up much as Rachel Maddow does when she talks about the “Friday Night News Dump,” which refers to the GOP practice of releasing huge news they don’t want widespread on a Friday evening or right before a holiday. The theory is that news stories sort of “get lost” in all of the weekend chatter.
The House Intelligence Committee report was released with little fanfare on the Friday before Thanksgiving week. Many of its findings echo those of six previous investigations by various congressional committees and a State Department panel. The eighth Benghazi investigation is being carried out by a House Select Committee appointed in May.
It’s not been a good week for Republicans.
Read more here and here. You can read the full report in PDF form or via the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence website. We’ve also embedded it below for your convenience.
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Tiffany Willis is a fifth-generation Texan and the founder and editor-in-chief of Liberal America. An unapologetic member of the Christian Left, she has spent most of her career actively working with ?the least of these? and disadvantaged and oppressed populations. She’s passionate about their struggles. To stay on top of topics she discusses,?like her?Facebook page,?follow her on Twitter, or?connect with her via LinkedIn. She also has?a?grossly neglected personal blog?and a?literary quotes blog that is a labor of love. Find her somewhere and join the discussion.
