Former secretary of State Hillary Clinton is testifying on Thursday before the House Select Committee on Benghazi in what is sure to be one of the most dramatic showdowns since the committee was first formed in May 2014.
Here are 7 things you need to know:
1. So far there have been about eight Congressional investigations into the attack on September 11, 2012, from five House committees and two Senate committees, to the State Department’s own independent Accountability Review Board, all looking into diplomatic security in the wake of the deadly attack on the U.S compound in Benghazi, Libya.
2. As Secretary of State, Clinton testified in January 2013 before the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees. Thursday’s testimony is Clinton’s first before the House Benghazi Committee and her first as a presidential candidate.
3. The Select Committee on Benghazi is comprised of seven Republicans and five Democrats and has been in existence for 17 months, longer than the Congressional committee that investigated the Watergate scandal in the 1970s.
4. So far, the House Select Committee has spent about $4.5 million dollars to hire staff, interview the families of the four men killed and obtain documents related to the investigation.
5. This is the first time former Secretary Clinton is testifying since her emails were released. The last time Clinton testified in 2013, the controversy about her use of a private email server had not yet broken.
6. According to the Associated Press, the House Select Committee has interviewed 54 witnesses, including seven new eyewitnesses to the Benghazi attack who were not interviewed earlier.
7. The committee has examined more than 50,000 pages of documents never before seen by Congress, including emails from Ambassador Stevens and top State Department personnel.
Watch a live-stream of the hearing below: