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REUTERS
WASHINGTON
CONGRESSIONAL Republicans on Tuesday accused the Obama administration and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of failing to protect US diplomats in the 2012 Benghazi, Libya, attack that killed four Americans.
In an 800-page report that Democrats have derided as a political vendetta, Republicans also accused Clinton, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and her staff of a"shameful" lack of response to congressional investigators looking into the tragedy and assailed Clinton's use of a private email server for official business.
The findings are sure to fuel attacks on Clinton on the presidential campaign trail, where she faces the Republicans' presumptive nominee, Trump.
Clinton's campaign dismissed the report as a partisan effort to derail her candidacy, arguing that the committee had not found anything that had not been discovered by previous congressional probes.
"After more than two years and more than $7 million in taxpayer funds, the committee report has not found anything to contradict the conclusions of the multiple, earlier investigations," Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said in a statement.
At a news conference on Capitol Hill, Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, the Republican chairman of the special panel, outlined what he said was a disconnect between the unfolding violence on the ground in Benghazi and the perception among top Obama administration officials that"the fighting had subsided" at the US diplomatic compound.
Gowdy said the panel uncovered"new information on what happened in Benghazi," including details contained in emails from then-Secretary Clinton that were handed over to the committee.
