How You Can Read The Benghazi Report

On Tuesday morning, nearly four years after the attacks in Libya that left four Americans dead, The House Select Committee on Benghazi released its final report on the 2012 attack at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. So, where can one read the long-awaited Benghazi report? Well, for anyone who's interested, The House Select Committee on Benghazi did release the 800 page Benghazi report to the public, and the chairman of the committee, Trey Gowdy, urged Americans to read it in its entirety.

In a statement released Tuesday morning along with the report, Gowdy, a Republican member of congress from South Carolina, saying:

I simply ask the American people to read this report for themselves, look at the evidence we have collected, and reach their own conclusions. You can read this report in less time than our fellow citizens were taking fire and fighting for their lives on the rooftops and in the streets of Benghazi.

While reading the report would likely be a worthwhile — albeit lengthly — experience, the final Benghazi report is making news not for new information it reveals, but rather for the debate over its political bias. ABC News reported that Democratic members of The House Select Committee on Benghazi were not allowed to contribute to the final report — therefore, many Americans view the report as a Republican-lead attack on the Obama administration, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

According to the New York Times, the Benghazi investigation has cost taxpayers seven million dollars, and it's an accepted fact that the investigation was politically biased and motivated from the beginning. While the final report reveals little information that was not disclosed in the multiple previous reports on the investigation, it's likely that the final report was released on Tuesday, less than a month before the Democratic National Convention, — at which former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to officially receive the Democratic nomination for president — for a reason. ABC reported that Republican members of the House have admitted that the Benghazi investigation was largely carried out in order to make Clinton look untrustworthy, and therefore keep her from the presidency.

So, it's clear that the Benghazi report is politically biased, and that Republican leaders made a concerted effort to drag the investigation into the attack on for years — according to the New York Times, the investigation lasted longer than the investigation into the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and longer than the investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. However, that doesn't mean that the report is not worth reading.

In fact, taking Congressman Gowdy's advice, and reading the final Benghazi report might not be such a bad idea — the report marks the end of a massively influential investigation in the United State's political history, it's a historic document. The attacks in Libya were tragic, and both political parties agree that fatal mistakes were made in dealing with security at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi; however, the attack was politicized, and political motivation is undoubtably why Benghazi is such a contentious issue.

Read on, the report might not include too much new information, but it has certainly played a role in recent American politics.