State Dept. assures Congress Clinton will testify next week

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Updated: 1:42p.m. ET

The State Department assured Congress today that Hillary Clinton will indeed be ready to testify next Thursday on the recent violence in Benghazi, after suggesting yesterday that the report on which her testimony will be based might not be ready in time.

"The committees have announced the secretary will be on the Hill next Thursday, and so that's the plan," said Patrick Ventrell, the State Department's Acting Deputy Spokesperson, in a briefing today. "We've been cooperating with Congress extensively and will continue to do so."

Yesterday, after releases from both the House and Senate announced Clinton's planned testimony, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland suggested to reporters that the timing of her commitment was not set in stone, because the department's Accountability Review Board (ARB) had not yet finished the report surrounding the Libya attacks.

Nuland said Clinton remained committed to "consult with Congress" once the report was complete, but left the door open for Clinton to push the date back. 

"She has made clear that when the work is ready, she will go consult with Congress on it. And that's a commitment she's made, and she intends to keep it," said Nuland. But regarding announcements by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee that Clinton would testify before them next Thursday, she said: "The Hill has talked about a planning date on the calendar. That presumes that the ARB is finished. I don't have any dates - any schedule of the Secretary's to announce here. It's dependent upon events between now and then." 

Asked if the date had been set by Congress without consultation with the secretary, Nuland replied that the committees "obviously planned a date on the calendar" but reiterated "that is dependent on all of the work getting done between now and then."

She declined to say whether or not Clitnon's office had been consulted, but Steve Sutton, a spokesman for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, tells CBSNews.com the date was announced "only after State confirmed the time and date for Clinton's appearance with us." Jodi Seth, a spokeswoman for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the committee had "obviously not" scheduled the testimony without consulting with Clinton's office. Seth said Clinton's office had agreed to the date.

Today, Ventrell clarified that "the report will be done by early next week."

[uncoverup]

Ambassador Stevens was killed far from the diplomatic cover of the US Embassy in Tripoli. While in Benghazi, Stevens was seen by Libyans as an agent of the CIA that had armed the Libyan rebels in the Libyan revolution and were at the time illegally transporting jihad fighters and their weapons into the Syria revolt.

Investigators interested in how the Department of State (DoS) depends on US-incorporated international oil companies (IOCs) for security of DoS/CIA operatives like Stevens in oil-rich dictatorships like Libya and Somalia are directed to "The Conoco-Somalia Declassification Project" by DuPage University Professor Keith Yearman (http://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/yearman/somalia.htm) and "ConocoPhillips Shareholder Proposal -- 2012" by Roger Parsons (http://UnCoverUp.net).

These two cases involving ConocoPhillips suggest a pattern of executive officers of publicly held US-incorporated IOCs defrauding their shareholders honest services by providing things of value to CIA operatives as quid pro quo for the honest services frauds by the Department of Justice (DoJ) in selective non-prosecution of these executive officers fro violating US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and anti-money laundering statutes.

[ammo17]

let me see after almost two years of trying to get the truth about "fast&furious"where thousand of people have probably been killed by the two thousand assault rifles sent to mexico illegally,only four innocent people have died here in benghazi,i think it should only take two to three weeks to get the truth.

[spicemom101]

How anti-American are the Republican comments here! Putting blame for a malicious massacre by Pakistanis' in Pakistan on our President and Secretary of State! FYI, our American Ambassador had security, though it wasn't "beefed-up", he had security. What's more, are you all forgetting that he was stationed in Pakistan??? A highly volatile nation?! Home and hide-out of Osama bin-Laden?! Whose side are YOU on???

[wfw3536]

Because of Mrs Clinton's incompetence and decision not to provide enough security for our brave Ambassador, and 3 other Americans died needlessly because she didn't do her job. Of course she most likely will try to lie her way out of it like when Obama called her out on being fired on by rebels in Kosovo when her husband was president.

[thechooch1]

wfw3536 additional security costs money, it was the republican House that cut monies for security, not your Secretary of State or your President. The republicans are all about cutting spending until something like this happens then it is all attack and blame.

[tb91006]

cooch1 There hasn't been a budget passed in the entire Obama's presidency so it is impossible for you to blame the republicans. Obama and his people spent the money as they saw fit. Get a grip your uninformed and it is showing. Secondly, there hasn't been any cuts in the four years Obama has been office thus the 6 trillion dollar deficit so all your remarks are sideways like your brain.