Clinton has long maintained she never saw the Aug. 16, 2012 cable. “That cable did not come to my attention,” Clinton testified under oath before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in January 2013. “I have made it very clear that the security cables did not come to my attention or above the assistant-secretary level, where the [State Department internal investigation] placed responsibility.”

Clinton explained that she was simply too busy, and there were simply too many cables, for her to see every one. “One-point-43 million cables a year come to the State Department,” she told the House committee. “They’re all addressed to me. They do not all come to me.”

But wasn’t that Aug. 16, 2012 cable — warning of dire consequences should the existing violence in Libya target Americans — a pretty important communication? What struck Republicans investigating Benghazi is that, while they knew Clinton was indeed busy, other equally busy top Obama administration officials did read the cable. In an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, both former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey — two busy men with pretty big jobs — testified they knew about it.