Washington—Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, today released the following statement:

“Statements on the Senate floor this morning and some media reports about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s bipartisan report on the attack against our diplomatic mission and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya, intimate that the report assigns culpability to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the tragedy.

“This is patently false.

“The report approved on a bipartisan basis says no such thing. As a matter of fact, Secretary Clinton is not mentioned a single time in the 58-page bipartisan section of our Benghazi report.

“I regret that the ‘Additional Views’ of the report adopted solely by six members of the Republican minority unfairly criticizes Secretary Clinton.

“I want the record to be clear: I condemn any effort to use this report for political purposes.

“Our responsibility throughout this review was to focus on the intelligence. The report finds the attacks were preventable, based on extensive intelligence reporting on terrorist activity in Eastern Libya and given known security shortfalls at the U.S. Mission. There was adequate strategic intelligence to indicate the possibility of an attack. Pages 11-14 of our report document prior attacks that we believe should have triggered an increase in security at the U.S. Mission.

“I am most interested in the future and preventing another attack on one of our 258 diplomatic facilities worldwide. That is the purpose of the report and of the 18 bipartisan recommendations.”

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