What were the official findings of the House Select Committee on Benghazi about Hillary Clinton?

1. The central official conclusion: no new evidence implicating Clinton

The Select Committee’s final, Republican‑led report—published as an 800‑page document after more than two years and roughly $7 million in expenditures—explicitly did not produce new allegations that Hillary Clinton was culpable for the deaths in Benghazi, and Republican leadership publicly acknowledged the absence of evidence contradicting prior investigations’ conclusions ^{[1] [3] [6]}.

2. The committee’s substantive findings: security failures and slow military response

While the panel stopped short of pinning blame on Clinton personally, its majority report emphasized failures across the government: woefully inadequate State Department security at the Benghazi facility and a military response that failed to deploy forces promptly despite what the committee described as “clear orders,” noting that nothing was en route when the last Americans were killed nearly eight hours after the attacks began ^{[4] [1]}.

3. What the committee said about Clinton’s actions and requests for security

The report and accompanying statements said Clinton was “active and engaged” during the night of the attacks and that she “never personally denied any requests for additional security in Benghazi,” a finding the committee framed as distinguishing personal culpability from institutional lapses ^{[4] [6]}.

4. How committee Republicans framed their report and the limits they acknowledged

Committee chairman Trey Gowdy and other Republicans presented the document as an exhaustive accounting of what went wrong operationally, but GOP leaders also conceded the investigation produced no “smoking gun” tying Clinton to criminal wrongdoing and repeatedly said the report was not intended as a personal indictment of the former secretary ^{[1] [6]}.

5. Democratic rebuttal and charges of political motive

Democrats on the committee and Clinton supporters argued the Select Committee’s work was politically constructed to damage Clinton’s presidential prospects, pointing to withheld testimony, partisan framing, and GOP election‑cycle timing as evidence that the inquiry functioned as a political crusade rather than a dispassionate fact‑finding mission ^{[1] [7] [5]}.

6. Dissenting Republican voices and supplemental views that blamed Clinton

Despite the majority report’s restraint, a set of Republican members (including Jim Jordan and Mike Pompeo) published supplemental views arguing Clinton “missed her last, clear chance to protect her people” and contending she and others misled the public about the nature of the attack; outside GOP officials and commentators framed the episode as evidence of a politically motivated cover‑up ^{[4] [5] [3]}.

7. Clinton’s testimony and the public optics

Clinton’s televised testimony before the committee—an 11‑hour appearance that drew intense scrutiny—did not materially change the report’s core outcome; journalists and analysts observed that her grilling yielded little new information that altered previous findings about the attack’s causes or Clinton’s conduct ^{[8] [9] [10]}.

8. Where the committee’s work fit in the broader investigative record

The Select Committee’s report reiterated and largely aligned with prior probes and the independent Accountability Review Board conclusions that had already faulted security and response failures; panel leaders and Clinton both pointed to those earlier bipartisan reviews when noting the committee added little that overturned past determinations ^{[11] [1] [12]}.