Benghazi probe dogs Clinton presidential bid

Corrections & Clarifications:A previous version of this article misstated the conclusion of the report by the Democratic-controlled Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the Benghazi attacks. The bipartisan report blamed the State Department for lax security, while some members of the Republican minority blamed then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The article also misstated when the report was released. It was released in January 2014.

The 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans weeks before President Obama's re-election threatens to dog Hillary Clinton as she wages her own presidential campaign.

One of Clinton's announced Republican opponents for the White House, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, was quick to raise the assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi as a weakness because she was secretary of State at the time and he says she failed to provide adequate security at the compound.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens was among those killed in what the White House belatedly labeled a terrorist attack. He was the first ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979.

On a separate front, Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, the Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said he will seek Clinton's testimony at a hearing yet to be scheduled.

Gowdy said he won't call on Clinton until he is satisfied she has turned over all relevant emails from a private computer server she used for government business during her tenure at the State Department. Clinton's attorneys said she already turned over relevant emails, but Gowdy said he wants an independent analysis of the server.

The impasse could help Republicans keep the controversy alive as Clinton tries to stay focused on her campaign.

Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said multiple congressional committees have spent millions of dollars on months-long inquiries "that have turned up nothing" to suggest Clinton did anything wrong.

"The attacks in Benghazi were a terrible tragedy," Merrill said. "As a matter of protecting our diplomats in harm's way, it couldn't be more important. But that's where our concerns end."

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the Benghazi committee, has called Gowdy's quest a "political charade."

"Unfortunately, it appears that the Select Committee on Benghazi has now become a taxpayer-funded effort to damage Hillary Clinton's campaign for president," Cummings said in a statement to USA TODAY. "The Committee has had Secretary Clinton's Benghazi-related emails for weeks, and she has been ready to testify in public for more than six months. Yet Republicans refuse to schedule her hearing and continue to squander millions of taxpayer dollars drawing out these proceedings as long as possible."

Gowdy, a former prosecutor, said reviewing all relevant documents and witness testimony first is just good investigative practice. If the committee had accepted Clinton's offer to testify in December, he'd have had to do it based on just eight emails provided at the time, Gowdy said.

Now, he wants answers about Clinton's private email server, whose existence became public as a result of his committee's questions, he said.

Republicans say Clinton failed to heed warnings and requests for additional security at the diplomatic outpost in Libya, and the White House downplayed the role of terrorism when it explained the Sept. 11, 2012, attack to the American public days later.

Paul called the attack Clinton's "3 a.m. moment," a reference to her 2008 campaign ad that questioned whether candidate Barack Obama, then a first-term U.S. senator, was ready for the role of commander in chief.

"She was asked to defend Benghazi, not just that night but, for nine months leading up to Benghazi, they were begging and pleading for more security," Paul said Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation. "And I think the fact that she didn't provide that security will go to the heart of the matter of whether or not we should have her as commander in chief."

A report issued in January 2014 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, controlled at the time Clinton's former Democratic colleagues, found inadequate security at the consulate despite multiple warnings. The bipartisan committee's report never mentioned Clinton. Several members of the Republican minority faulted Clinton as the Secretary of State at the time.

The report also said talking points used by then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice in Sunday talk shows after the attack contained erroneous information, although they reflected what the intelligence community believed at the time.

Those talking points blamed the attack on a "spontaneous demonstration" to an anti-Islam video. Yet no demonstration preceded the attack, and known terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda had been observed taking leading roles in the violence.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Clinton should inform the public about what she was doing during the attack, and why she had Rice explain the attack instead of doing so herself.

"This was as close as she got to being commander in chief," he said. "I think we should ask: Do we trust her actions on Benghazi, do we trust the narrative?"