Democrats minimise Clinton role, slam GOP in new Benghazi report

The US Democratic Party on Monday released a report on the 2012 Benghazi attack, in a move to pre-empt an upcoming Republican-written report likely to slam Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time.

The report conceded that security at the US diplomatic compound was "woefully inadequate," but said State Department officials in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security were to blame for that. Clinton had nothing to do with the staffing choices that resulted in a lack of security, it said.

"Over the past three years, Republican members of Congress and presidential candidates have accused Secretary Clinton of personally denying security requests that contributed to the Special Mission Compound’s inadequate security posture in Benghazi," the report added.

"None of the individuals interviewed by the select committee identified any evidence to support these Republican claims."

The 11 September 2012 attack on the US facilities killed the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, along with three other Americans.

"Republicans have repeatedly accused Secretary Clinton of personally and knowingly endangering the lives of the four Americans killed in Benghazi," the report said.

"These accusations are based on no evidence, or evidence that is unsubstantiated or distorted, and they are often cloaked in extreme rhetoric that has no basis in fact."

After enumerating a number of US officials Clinton spoke to after hearing news of the attack, the report went on to stress that it was caused by "terrorists ... not US foreign policy".

Some 43 pages of the report took direct aim at Republicans, in a section entitled "Select Committee Squandered Millions of Dollars in a Partisan Effort to Attack a Presidential Candidate".

Democrats have throughout the ongoing presidential election cycle been dismissing investigations into Clinton's handling of the Benghazi attack as political opportunism aimed at destroying Clinton's chances of winning. The party has similarly pooh-poohed attacks on Clinton over her use of a personal email server to send and receive sensitive State Department emails. 

The presumptive Democratic nominee is also facing an FBI investigation over the email issue, with critics saying the fact that she used a private server could have been a danger to US national security.