House Republicans want another investigation of the attacks in Benghazi, specifically whether the White House is withholding information on the attacks. It's the eighth investigation into the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Libya in which four Americans died, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
The vote to create a new select committee succeeded largely on a party-line vote. Here's a history:
Diplomatic workers staffed a temporary residential outpost in the Libyan city after the death of dictator Moammar Gadhafi. While ambassador, Stevens, was visiting from the capital in Tripoli, armed Islamic terrorists attacked, setting a toxic diesel-fueled fire that killed the ambassador and a colleague. Americans then drove, chased by attackers, to a nearby annex, where a mortar attack in the morning killed two security contractors.
By noon, hasty scrambling by the American and Libyan governments got U.S. workers to safety in Tripoli, along with their four dead comrades. Obama described it an "act of terror" the day after the attack. But in the days that followed, neither he nor all the members of his administration spoke consistently on the subject.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, suggested in May 2013 that the United States could have prevented the deaths with military action. This description doesn't match the timeline of what happened in Benghazi. The four people in Benghazi were already dead when the decision was made to keep the special forces team in Tripoli.
Last year, Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said President Obama should be impeached; one reason he gave was that the White House watched live video of the attacks while it was occurring. Actually, there's no evidence that there was live video. There also have been assertions that the ambassador's body was abused as part of the attacks. Stevens was overcome by smoke from the fire, and Libyans brought him to a hospital where efforts to revive him failed. There are no credible reports of public abuse of his body.
MSNBC's Ronan Farrow pointed to unfulfilled spending requests for embassy security funding and put the responsibility on Democrats and Republicans in Congress. State Department officials and government experts lay more blame on decisions by upper management not to provide the temporary Benghazi facility with more officers and better protections than on the availability of money.
On the issue of security at the outpost in Benghazi, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul put the blame on Hillary Clinton. The State Department was asked repeatedly for additional U.S. security staff in Libya. But Politifact found no evidence that Clinton herself was made aware of those requests.
Last year, Obama said that the facts behind the attacks had been thoroughly investigated by an independent review board, but he exaggerated how wide-ranging the review was.
Politifact found that the review board did not look at every element of the incident. It looked at most of the security matters involved, but it didn't look at who conducted the attacks or at the administration's public comments in the days following.
Pundit Cokie Roberts on ABC's This Week said: "When you read the transcript of those Sunday shows, actually Ms. Rice did say a 'terrorist attack.'
Politifact's review of the transcripts from Rice's appearances showed the opposite. She consistently emphasized the importance of the video, and the only times she brought up the possibility of a terrorist connection was to downplay it.
Fox's O'Reilly consistently told viewers that someone was trying to mislead the American public. Democrats, meanwhile, have charged that Republicans doctored emails in their efforts to continue attacking the White House on Benghazi. Both claims are mostly false.
Chip Tuthill lives in Mancos. Websites used: www.politifact.com