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The facts set out by the State Department's "Accountability
Review Board" (ARB) report, released in December 2012, did not
find former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- now a
Democratic presidential candidate -- responsible for security
lapses in Benghazi.
But the report concluded that the U.S. mission in Benghazi was
unprepared for the attack, and outlined widespread failings
within the State Department while Clinton was in charge.
Four Americans including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens were
killed when militants stormed U.S. facilities in the eastern
Libyan city of Benghazi on the night of Sept. 11, 2012.
U.S. Representative Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican who
heads the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said earlier
Thursday that the State Department had given his panel some
4,000 pages from its 2012 ARB probe into Benghazi. He said it
was the first time State had handed Congress papers from an ARB,
special panels that State sets up to investigate attacks on U.S.
diplomatic facilities.
A State Department letter to Gowdy reviewed by Reuters last week
made clear the department was unhappy about relinquishing the
ARB files, saying it worried "the prospect of congressional
scrutiny could have a chilling effect" on future ARBs.
"I’m not going to characterize the contents of the documents
that were provided, except to say that they don’t change the
essential facts that have been known since the accountability
review board report came out,” State's spokeswoman Marie Harf
said on Thursday.
A Democratic aide to the Benghazi committee went further, saying
the ARB papers "identified no evidence to support claims that
Secretary Clinton ordered a stand-down, personally denied
security requests, oversaw a covert weapons program, or any of
the other wild claims Republicans have been making for months."
Republicans say the State Department under Clinton failed to
protect diplomatic personnel in Benghazi. Democrats say the
panel's efforts are politically motivated to undercut Clinton's
2016 presidential candidacy.
The State Department has already turned over thousands of pages
of other documents to Gowdy's panel. The House committee is also
investigating Clinton's use of a private email server, and plans
to have her testify.
(Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson and Susan Heavey;
editing by Bernadette Baum and Andrew Hay)
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