| If you've been avoiding everything Benghazi-related for the past four years, we'll try to catch you up fairly quickly. Plus, both candidates try to outdo each other on protectionism, but are dogged by pasts actions, and the media rips apart President Whitmore's "Independence Day" speech line-by-line. It's your Wednesday edition of For the Record ... let's go: |
| Conflicting Benghazi reports overshadowed by partisan politics |
| "There is a time for politics and a time to set politics aside. A national tragedy is one of those times when as a nation we should join together to find the truth. That did not happen here." |
| Republican representatives Mike Pompeo of Kansas and Jim Jordan of Ohio summed up their response to the Benghazi investigation in their "additional views" addendum to the House Benghazi Committee report issued yesterday. Here's a brief breakdown of the Benghazi attacks and the aftermath: |
| The American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya was attacked on Sept. 11, 2012, and two Americans were killed, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Several hours later, a second attack took place on a nearby CIA annex, killing two others. |
| In the following days and weeks, officials within the Obama administration (including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama himself) publicly said the attacks were spontaneous riots sparked by an anti-Islamic video posted on YouTube and later shown on Egyptian television. However, internal communication indicated that the administration believed the attack was determined to be well-coordinated, not spontaneous. Later investigations determined that to be accurate. |
| Critics say Clinton and the State Department didn't do enough to beef up security at the compound prior to the attack, and they didn't react quickly enough militarily to protect the four Americans killed. Clinton took responsibility as secretary of State for the attacks while testifying before Congress in 2013. |
| And now over the last two days we have two separate reports - one Democratic, one Republican - from an initially bipartisan House investigation into the attacks. The Democratic report, issued Monday, found Clinton not at fault, and somehow made 23 references to Donald Trump. The Republican report, issued yesterday, said the U.S. didn't even try to save the victims. The difference in opinion comes down to three key points: security in the lead-up to the attack, the military response to the attack, and the reasoning behind the shifting explanations for the attack. USA TODAY's Paul Singer says the investigation produced little more than talking points for both sides. |
| Hillary Clinton has responded by saying "it's time to move on." Donald Trump tweeted that "Benghazi is just another Hillary Clinton failure." And the NRA is airing ads in swing states featuring a Marine Corps veteran and security contractor who fought at Benghazi, urging voters to vote Trump. |
| Trump really hopes it's recycling day tomorrow, because this is getting out of hand |
| R2D2 managed to shut down all the garbage mashers on the detention level in just enough time for Trump to deliver a speech entitled "How To Make America Wealthy Again" at Monessen, Pennsylvania. Trump vowed to renegotiate or scrap multilateral trade deals like NAFTA (the 22-year-old agreement between Canada, Mexico and the United States) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (a 12-nation agreement that has yet to take effect). To replace them, Trump promised bilateral trade agreements, action against China as a currency manipulator, and the use of American steel and American workers for U.S. infrastructure projects. "Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very, very wealthy ... but it has left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache," Trump said. |
| Hillary, meanwhile, says she wants to appoint a "trade prosecutor" to bring cases before the World Trade Organization, and to fight "unfair trade practices like when China dumps cheap steel in our markets or uses weak rules of origin to undercut our car makers." |
| We're raising an eyebrow here for Trump and for Clinton (which is unfortunate, because one eyebrow raised makes us look skeptical, but raising one for each just makes us look surprised). Hillary has been on both sides of the trade issue, specifically with TPP; Trump, meanwhile, seems pretty content with overseas trade. |
| More from the campaign trail |
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| 'Consumed by our petty differences' basically is the slogan of 2016 |
| College Humor watches today's media outlets pick apart the greatest presidential speech of our lifetimes. |
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