Found on the Internets …
Benghazi Select Committee Will Have 7 Republicans, 5 Democrats
The soon-to-be-formed select committee to investigate the Benghazi attacks will have 7 Republican members and 5 Democratic members, a senior GOP leadership aide confirmed to TPM on Tuesday afternoon.
That means Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will reject a request by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that the panel be evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats in order to be “fair.”
HAHAHAHAHA!!! “Fair” definitely belongs in quotes.
Congressman Warns New Benghazi Committee Could Cost ‘Tens Of Millions’
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has been an outspoken critic of the Republican-led effort investigate the Obama administration’s response to the attack on a diplomatic outpost in eastern Libya. When asked how much the new special committee would cost taxpayers, Schiff was not optimistic about it being cheap. “I think unquestionably it will be in the millions,” Schiff said in a phone interview with ThinkProgress. “And it depends on how long they stay at it. They seem to have an insatiable appetite for this subject, so clearly in the millions. Whether it will go beyond that into the tens of millions may depend on just how crazy they are.”
Joan Walsh: Democrats should boycott latest Benghazi charade
Five House committees have already investigated the Benghazi tragedy and issued biased reports; there have been two Senate committee reports plus the Accountability Review Board’s findings. The bipartisan reports found errors on the part of State Department personnel and recommended staffing and other changes. But because none of the investigations were able to charge then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with incompetence, or prove that President Obama tried to cover up the truth to get re-elected, Republicans won’t believe them, and insist there’s more to “investigate.”
Thus we have the latest House Benghazi stunt – and Democrats should stay away from it. […]
Gowdy’s committee is best understood as as a base-energizing fundraising tool for the GOP, part of what Politico’s Michael Hirsch calls “the Benghazi industrial complex,” engineered to damage Clinton so much she either can’t run for president or decides it’s not worth the pain. Of course, Benghazi fever hasn’t spread beyond the fever swamps of Obama hatred that afflict the GOP’s far-right base. But that’s enough to keep it alive, and potentially make it a potent midterm-election organizing tool. House Democrats should make that role clear by boycotting it.
Norman Ornstein, speaking to Greg Sargent (WaPo) asked: “The question is, does it make more sense to be in there, participating in the process and pointing out Republican overkill again and again, or does it make more sense to further destroy the image of the committee by staying out of it?”
Short answer: after 2 years there is literally NOTHING that a Democrat can point out that would make a whit of difference. They are there as fig leafs. Period.
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