Cheryl Mills, the longtime attorney, friend and former chief of staff for Hillary Clinton, colored the findings of an internal State Department review, the House committee said. | AP Photo Report: Mills’ influence tainted review board

Cheryl Mills, the longtime attorney, friend and former chief of staff for Hillary Clinton, influenced the findings of an internal State Department review of the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack, according to a draft of the final House Benghazi Committee report.

A section of the report obtained by POLITICO says the so-called Accountability Review Board did not act independently, as it was supposed to do, and was consistently influenced by Mills. Mills, the report says, helped select members of the panel, gave at least one other State Department official permission to talk to the reviewers, oversaw the production of some documents reviewed by the board and helped edit the final report.

“The decisions to deviate from longstanding processes raise questions about the board’s independence, thoroughness and therefore the fullness of their findings of accountability,” the report reads.

The issue is a sensitive one for State and Republicans. The department has long held that its ARB report was independent and not influenced by then-Secretary Clinton. Mills has said that while she may have offered suggestions on a draft of the board’s report, it was under no pressure to accept them. She’s also said it worked independently in testimony she gave before the Benghazi committee’s final report was issued Tuesday.

“The Benghazi ARB ably found the essential facts about Benghazi and provided the Department with a detailed roadmap for how to improve" said State Department Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner on Tuesday. "We stand by its work and diligence," Toner added, noting that an inspector general found in 2013 that the Benghazi ARB “operate[d] as intended – independently and without bias.”

But Republicans say that’s not the full story, citing testimony and emails uncovered in their probe. Under State Department procedures, the report says, a coordinating committee was supposed to “forward a list of potential board members to the secretary for approval.”

But when Clinton was secretary they didn’t do that because “the senior staff were already in the process of identifying panelists to serve.” Clinton’s deputy secretary of state recommended to Mills that former Ambassador Thomas Pickering lead the board because he “understand[s] entirely demands of expeditionary diplomacy,” a phrase that means working beyond State’s more established infrastructure — sometimes in dangerous places.

One State employee seemed frustrated by the process, writing an email to Executive Secretary of the Department of State Stephen Mull that “I would appreciate knowing how this ARB is going to work since it is not going in the normal way.”

In another email the panel reviewed, a top State official wrote to another that Mills had asked him to talk to one of his employees about serving as the “executive secretary” of the ARB — the person who facilitated the board’s access to State. Mills has said in the past, however, that the employee was recommended to her.

The panel also spoke with State employees who said Mills had a hand in the process by which the department turned over documents to the ARB.

Charlene Lamb, who oversaw diplomatic security issues and was put on administrative leave after the security failures at Benghazi, said Mills “was responsible for getting all of the documents that were being requested.”

“Mills … had a lot of questions about security policies, procedures, you know, what was routine and what was done under exigent circumstances,” she added.

Toner strongly disputed that. "It is inaccurate that Cheryl Mills was in charge of providing documents to the ARB," he said. "The ARB issued its own document requests to bureaus, conducted interviews and briefings of its own choosing, and reached its conclusions independently based on the facts."

Adm. Mike Mullen, vice chairman of the accountability review board, said he personally called Mills to tell her that Lamb, slated to testify before Congress, “could be a very difficult appearance for the State Department.”

Mullen and the board also kept Mills apprised of some of their recommendations and how the process was progressing. Mills also told the Benghazi committee that the board shared a draft report with her, and “I shared back my observations of instances where there were issues or facts that I thought were relevant for consideration.”

“I certainly made recommendations for places where I thought there were inaccuracies or misstatements or other information that might not be fully reflective of what the information was that was there,” she said. Tom Nides, deputy secretary of state, also sought approval from Mills to talk to the ARB, running by her a request to meet with him and writing: “I assume this is a y.”