The U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will testify on a report expected to be released next week on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, a top Republican lawmaker said on Friday.
“I have just received confirmation from Secretary Clinton’s
office that the secretary of state will appear before the House
Committee on Foreign Affairs to discuss, in an open hearing, the
findings and the recommendations in the report,” Representative
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement.
Ros-Lehtinen is chair of the House of Representatives
Foreign Relations Committee, which has already held several
hearings and classified briefings on the attack.
The attack killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and
three other Americans, and raised questions about the adequacy
of security in far-flung posts.
Republicans have criticized the Obama administration for its
flawed early public explanations of the attack, and then for
shifting explanations of why talking points given to U.S
Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice were changed to
delete a reference to al Qaeda.
Ros-Lehtinen said she expected an accountability review
board convened by the State Department to release a report on
the attack sometime next week.
The review board, led by veteran diplomatic heavyweight
Thomas Pickering, is expected to consider whether enough
attention was given to potential threats and how Washington
responded to security requests from U.S. diplomats in Libya.
Ros-Lehtinen said she wanted to hear from Clinton about
steps the State Department has taken to deal with problems in
the “security of our posts, threat assessments, host government
responsibilities and coordination with other U.S. security
agencies.”
The committee’s press release did not give a date for the
hearing with Clinton, but said it expected it to happen “soon
after” the review board’s report is released.
