Officials at the State Department, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the Obama administration, "misled the public about the events in Benghazi," including telling one story privately and a different story publicly as the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on the Libyan diplomatic outpost unfolded, Rep. Mike Pompeo says in a supplemental report to the long-awaited House Select Committee on Benghazi coming out on Tuesday.
"Officials at the State Department, including Secretary Clinton, learned almost in real time that the attack in Benghazi was a terrorist attack," the Kansas Republican says in a supplementary report, co-authored by Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan and supplied to Newsmax, on the committee's findings.
"With the presidential election just 56 days away, rather than tell the American people the truth and increase the risk of losing an election, the administration told one story privately and a different story publicly. They publicly blamed the deaths on a video-inspired protest they knew had never occurred."
Both Pompeo and Jordan served on the committee, chaired by South Carolina Republican Trey Gowdy, and their supplemental report chastises Clinton for her action surrounding the "woefully inadequate" security in Benghazi, and says she "failed to lead."
"The State Department has many posts but Libya and Benghazi were different," the supplemental report concludes. "After Qaddafi, the U.S. knew that we could not count on host nation security in a country where militias held significant power. The American people expect that when the government sends our representatives into such dangerous places they receive adequate protection."
Clinton pushed for intervention, the report, released officially early Tuesday morning said, because it "represented one of her signature achievements. To leave Benghazi would have been viewed as her failure and prompted unwelcome scrutiny of her choices."
She had a "clear chance" to act in August 2012, when she was presented with a memo from Assistant Secretary Beth Jones, which painted a "bleak picture" of the conditions at the outpost, but she missed the "last, clear chance to protect her people."
Further, the United States did not try everything it could to rescue its people at the Libyan mission.
"The American people expect their government to make every effort to help those we put in harm's way when they find themselves in trouble," the report supplement says. "The U.S. military never sent assets to help rescue those fighting in Benghazi and never made it into Libya with personnel during the attack. And, contrary to the administration's claim that it could not have landed in Benghazi in time to help, the administration never directed men or machines into Benghazi."
And even after the attacks, President Barack Obama promised that the terrorists involved would be brought to justice, but almost four years later, only one of those involved in the attacks have been brought to the United States to face federal charges, but "even that terrorist will not receive the full measure of justice after the administration chose not to seek the death penalty. The American people are owed an explanation."
There are also many unanswered questions, even nearly four years after the attacks occurred, because the administration failed to cooperate with the investigation into the attacks.
"We saw no evidence that the administration held a sincere interest in helping the Committee find the truth about Benghazi," Pompeo and Jordan say in their summary. "So while the investigation uncovered new information, we nonetheless end the Committee's investigation without many of the facts, especially those involving the President and the White House, we were chartered to obtain."
According to parts of the official report itself, the attacks happened after a combination of factors, including worsening conditions and security in Libya and inadequate resources.
Clinton testified to the House Benghazi Committee last year that she knew of the dangers, but there was not any "actionable intelligence" that would indicate the attack that ended in the deaths of Stephens, IT expert Sean Smith, and security officers Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.
On Monday,
Democrats released their own report, accusing Gowdy and the committee of being politically biased and wasting taxpayer dollars in hopes of damaging Clinton as the November election nears.
The panel, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said, had been responsible for probing "a Republican conspiracy theory in search of a conspiracy," reports
CNN. Further, Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon called the committee a "partisan sham since its start" in a late night tweet.
But according to the committee's report, reviewed in part by
Fox News, an agent at the Benghazi outpost had told the committee he heard "some kind of chanting" followed by "explosions" and "gunfire" and a senior watch officer said the attacks were a "full-on attack."
And while at first the administration blamed the attacks on protests surrounding a anti-Muhammad video, there was nothing in the information reviewed that mentioned a protest and "the firsthand accounts made their way to the office of the Secretary through multiple channels quickly."