Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) rushed to Hillary Clinton’s defense on Thursday, after Republicans seized on her panel’s new report on Benghazi to attack the potential 2016 candidate.
{mosads}“Statements on the Senate floor this morning and some media reports about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s bipartisan report on the attack against our diplomatic mission and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya, intimate that the report assigns culpability to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the tragedy,” Feinstein said in a statement. “This is patently false.”
Feinstein’s comments come after a trio of hawkish Republicans — Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) — took to the Senate floor to demand senior State Department officials be held “accountable” for the security failures. Others, including the senior Republican on Feinstein’s panel, have called on Clinton to return to Capitol Hill to testify about the attack.
The bipartisan report released on Wednesday faults the State Department and U.S. intelligence services for failing to connect the dots and beef up security ahead of the attacks that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans on Sept. 11, 2012. It doesn’t mention Clinton, the secretary of State at the time, except in an addendum signed only by Republicans.
Feinstein slammed those additional views in her statement.
“I regret that the ‘Additional Views’ of the report adopted solely by six members of the Republican minority unfairly criticizes Secretary Clinton,” Feinstein said.
“I want the record to be clear: I condemn any effort to use this report for political purposes.”
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