Panel report kindles fresh debate over Hillary and Benghazi attack

In an 800-page report that Democrats derided as a political vendetta, Republicans said Clinton, who served as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 and is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and her staff showed a “shameful” lack of response to Congressional investigators looking into the attack on a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

The report, the culmination of a two-year investigation by a special Congressional committee led by Republican Representative Trey Gowdy, is likely to be the last official attempt to investigate the attack. Seven other Congressional panels have also investigated the attack on the US diplomatic and CIA posts in Benghazi. 

The latest investigation has been used by Republicans to attack Clinton’s national-security credentials. Opinion polls have shown Americans deeply split along partisan lines over the probe.

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has repeatedly charged that Clinton is personally responsible for the deaths of a US ambassador and three other Americans killed by militia groups in the September 11, 2012 incident. Clinton’s campaign dismissed the committee’s report, saying it had not found anything that had not been discovered by previous Congressional probes.