House Panel Rejects Benghazi Conspiracies

The House Intelligence Committee spent two years investigating conspiracy theories about the 2012 Benghazi attack and has concluded they're mostly just hot air. Here's the takeaway paragraph from the AP:

• The investigation "determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria."

Yes, then UN ambassador Susan Rice wrongly stated that the attacks were the result of a protest against an inflammatory video, but the panel found that Rice had been given bad intelligence and that neither she nor anyone else in the White House deliberately tried to mislead the public.

The report further finds no evidence that CIA officers were ordered to "stand down" during the attack or were intimidated afterward to avoid testifying, reports CNN. "We concluded that all the CIA officers in Benghazi were heroes," says Republican panel chairman Mike Rogers and ranking Democrat CA Dutch Ruppersberger. The panel does, however, fault the State Department for having weak security at the US consulate, and Politico expects that criticism to resonate. This is not the end of the Benghazi inquiries: A House select committee appointed in May is still conducting its own investigation. (More Benghazi stories.)