A House investigation into the Benghazi embassy attack concluded that the Obama administration was not guilty of any deliberate, negligent wrongdoing, according to Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.). Thompson told SFGate that the report, from a GOP-led panel, "confirms that no one was deliberately misled, no military assets were withheld and no stand-down order" was given to troops in the area.

The House Intelligence Committee voted last week to declassify the report, pending approval from security agencies.

Certainly it's possible Thompson was sugar-coating the report ahead of its formal release. Yet the broad conclusion he outlined — that while the administration botched its initial talking points due to conflicting intelligence, it was not hiding some big explosive scandal — further undercuts the GOP's claims to the contrary. A bipartisan Senate report released in January similarly found that there was no evidence of a cover-up.

Nevertheless, House Republicans are still pressing ahead with a separate investigation into the attack. And though House Democrats have agreed to participate in it, they have branded the investigation a "political stunt" timed, coincidentally, to align with the midterm elections. Jon Terbush

Donald Trump personally entered the spin room at Hofstra University after his first presidential debate against Hillary Clinton, and he told ABC News reporter Tom Llamas that he left only one thing on the table: "I got everything I wanted to say, I got it out, other than the transgressions of Bill, because, you know, she takes all these commercials, spending hundreds of millions on commercials — and they're lies, they're lies — but I thought — and I didn't want to do it with Chelsea, who I think is a wonderful young lady, I didn't say what I was going to say with Chelsea in the room, so maybe they're well off to bring Chelsea all the time."

Llamas asked if it was fair for Clinton to bring up the $14 million loan from his father and his derogatory comments about women. "I thought it was very cheap," Trump said. "First of all, my father gave me a very small amount of money, relative to what I've built — I've built a massive company and a great company — but I learned so much from my father." He added that Clinton's comments about things he has said about women were "disgraceful," but not as bad as the TV ads she's running against him.

He told CNN's Dana Bash that he might bring up Bill Clinton's "indiscretions" at the next debate, but when Bash asked if he took "Hillary Clinton's bait" on the "birther" issue (which was raised by moderator Lester Holt), Trump said no. "I was very proud of the fact I was able to get him to put up his birth certificate and Hillary Clinton failed, because she just can't bring it home," he said. "I mean, she just can't bring it home. And she'll fail with jobs, and she'll fail all the way along the line, and I think we proved that tonight. She failed with getting him to do it, I got him to do it, so I'm very proud of it."

Clinton, it should be noted, never asked to see President Obama's birth certificate, and never questioned if he was born in the U.S. But that's why it's called the spin room. Peter Weber

Donald Trump sent debate audience scrambling for their dictionaries Monday night when he told them, "I wrote the Art of the Deal. I say that not in a braggadocious way."

The Merriam-Webster dictionary reported that "look-ups for braggadocio spiked during the debate … after Trump used a word that is very similar in nature and spelling. The word employed by Trump was braggadocious, which is a dialectical word from 19th century America, meaning 'arrogant.'"

The dictionary added that while Trump has used "braggadocious" in the past, it hadn't skyrocketed to the top of their lookups the way it did after the debate.

But the 19th-century word wasn't the only one people were curious about — "stamina" and "temperament" also climbed the dictionary's charts Monday night. Jeva Lange

Minutes after the debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at Hofstra University ended, the Republican nominee tweeted his displeasure with the questions asked.

"Nothing on emails. Nothing on the corrupt Clinton Foundation. And nothing on #Benghazi," he tweeted. Clinton's emails were brought up in the earlier portion of the debate, after Trump was asked if he would release his taxes. "I will release my tax returns — against my lawyer's wishes — when she releases her 33,000 e-mails that have been deleted," he said. "As soon as she releases them, I will release."

Clinton was given a chance to respond, and said she "made a mistake using a private e-mail," and if able to "do it over again, I would, obviously, do it differently. But I'm not going to make any excuses. It was a mistake, and I take responsibility for that." The nominees both knew ahead of time the topics Holt planned to focus on. Catherine Garcia

Hillary Clinton wanted to get under Donald Trump's skin during the first presidential debate — and she did. Pollster Frank Luntz crunched the numbers and found that crowds of undecided voters reacted positively during Clinton's attacks — and even more telling, they did not seem to change their minds when Trump stepped in to defend himself:

Clinton has long suggested that Trump is easily provoked — and at this point it seems, he'll have to at least wait to the next debate to prove her wrong. Jeva Lange

In Monday's presidential debate, Donald Trump doubled down on his widely disputed claim that he was always against the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Trump maintained that his 2002 interview on Howard Stern's radio show, in which he said the U.S. should invade Iraq, was just light banter. And as moderator Lester Holt repeatedly noted Trump's public support of the war, Trump insisted that reporters should just call Sean Hannity, the Fox News host who openly supports Trump, recalling that he and Hannity got in fights about the war before President George W. Bush invaded.

Too bad we can't do a FOIA on Sean Hannity's 2002 diaries. Peter Weber

Donald Trump's audible sniffing throughout Monday night's debate caused many to wonder if he is battling a cold, but Howard Dean took the speculation to another level.

"Notice Trump sniffling all the time. Coke user?" the former governor of Vermont and onetime Democratic presidential candidate tweeted (yes, from his verified account). Since Trump is still onstage at Hofstra University, he hasn't responded to Dean's question. Maybe it's just pneumonia? Catherine Garcia

During a section of the presidential debate devoted to the topic of race, moderator Lester Holt accused Donald Trump of continually perpetuating the falsehood that President Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States — a theory that Hillary Clinton called "a racist lie."

But Trump repeatedly deflected Holt's question, turning the moment around to tout that he was able to get Obama's birth certificate released. Yet as Holt pointed out, Obama's birth certificate was actually released back in 2011, and Trump continued to insinuate Obama was born abroad as recently as January of this year.

Trump again sidestepped the accusations, to which Holt tried one last time to get an answer. "We're talking about racially healing in this segment," Holt said. "What do you say to Americans of color —"

"I say nothing, because I was able to get [Obama] to produce it, he should have produced it a long time before," Trump interrupted. "I say nothing."

When Clinton was given a chance to respond, she said simply, "Just listen to what you heard." Watch Trump deliver his answer, below. Jeva Lange