In her first testimony since the Benghazi attack, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton participates in a full day of hearings Wednesday about U.S. diplomatic security and the American mission in Libya.
Sec. Clinton appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the morning and will provide an afternoon testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In December, the State Department's highest ranking foreign service officers, William Burns and Thomas Nides, testified before Congressional lawmakers in the Secretary's place. They discussed a new report by an independent panel assessing the Benghazi attack.
Deputy Sec. Nides put several recommendations from a report on the attack into effect before the end of 2012. Implementing the rest, Nides said, will be underway by the time the next Secretary of State takes office. Three State Department officials have resigned since the report was released.
The two officials were substituting for Secretary Clinton, who was recovering from a concussion she suffered after fainting due to dehydration from a stomach virus.
Four Americans were killed in that attack, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens. Congress is investigating whether the State Department denied a request for extra security at that outpost earlier in the year and what actions were taken in the moments after the attack began.