Posted on 05/14/2013 3:56:13 AM PDT by markomalley
House Republican members are defying Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and five committee chairmen by endorsing a measure that would set up a special panel to investigate the deadly attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
A growing number of members on the committees with jurisdiction over the Benghazi matter — Intelligence, Judiciary, Oversight and Government Reform, Armed Services and Foreign Affairs — have signed onto Rep. Frank Wolf’s (R-Va.) resolution.
Boehner and the chairmen of those committees do not support the legislation. Instead, they have worked together to investigate the Obama administration’s handling of the Sept. 11, 2012 assault.
Despite that resistance, Wolf has garnered a sizable majority of the GOP Conference as co-sponsors since introducing the measure in January. It has 146 GOP co-sponsors, with more than 80 Republicans backing it over the last month.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has also embraced a special committee and attempted to pry the GOP-led House to schedule a vote. That would put pressure, McCain has pointed out, on the Senate to act.
According to a review of the House co-sponsors, a majority of GOP lawmakers on the Armed Services, Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees and half of the GOP lawmakers on the Foreign Affairs panel have endorsed the Wolf resolution.
Former Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) signed on to the resolution Monday, while former Homeland Security Committee Chairman Pete King (R-N.Y.) endorsed it during a television interview. Late last week, former Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) became a co-sponsor.
Two of the Intelligence Committee’s 12 GOP lawmakers, Reps. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and Tom Rooney (Fla.), have signed on.
Not one Democrat has co-sponsored the Wolf resolution.
President Obama on Monday dismissed GOP charges that his administration covered up the truth about the attacks in Benghazi, calling them a politically motivated “sideshow” that does “dishonor” to the nation’s diplomats.
He added: “The whole issue of talking points, frankly, throughout this process has been a sideshow. The fact that this keeps getting churned out, frankly, has a lot to do with political motivations.”
Wolf told The Hill in an interview, “I think you want to bring together the very best minds, you want to focus like a laser beam ... bring an outside counsel to coordinate, direct and unify ... bring it together in 90 days.”
Should Boehner not seek a vote on Wolf’s resolution, the Virginia congressman revealed he might have several opportunities to offer the measure as an amendment on the House floor during the appropriations bill process in June.
“I would look for a way to offer an amendment on the floor. Appropriations bills are coming. There will be opportunities,” Wolf explained.
Detractors say that creating a select committee would be counterproductive to the work that has already been undertaken by the five committees of jurisdiction.
They maintain that the 90-day timeline would allow for administration stonewalling, and with only 19 members on the committee — 10 of which would be the committee chairmen and ranking members of the panels with jurisdiction — said it would be difficult to appoint standout questioners to the select panel.
On Sunday, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) dismissed the idea of a creating a select committee: “... it needs to be investigated. Our committee can investigate.”
Last Thursday, Wolf sent a stinging letter to Boehner, citing the support for his select committee cause the day after Oversight and Government Reform held a high-profile hearing on Benghazi.
“The revelations at [last week’s] hearing have raised serious questions about the administration’s efforts to respond to the Americans under fire at the annex in Benghazi. What remains to be seen is whether the House will be complicit in that failure, or if we will pursue the truth — wherever it may take us — to ensure that we continue to deserve the sacrifices made by the men and women who serve our country,” Wolf wrote.
Boehner last week remained firm in his commitment to follow “regular order” and allow the committees with jurisdiction to continue to share the workload.
He highlighted the Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s performance in questioning State Department whistle-blower Gregory Hicks.
“I thought that Chairman Issa and the members of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee ... did a fabulous job in a very long day of hearings of eliciting more information that, frankly, we haven’t had for the last eight months,” Boehner said.
A senior House Republican aide said, “It should be pretty clear after last week that there is already a committee leading the overarching investigation, and that is Chairman Issa’s committee. After last week’s hearing, there is growing concern, even among members who’ve advocated the creation of a select committee in the past, that throwing all this to a select committee now instead of letting Issa’s panel continue to do its work would actually impede the investigation.”
Since the hearing last week, seven House Republicans have formally co-sponsored Wolf’s legislation, including Deputy Whip Tom Cole (Okla.).
On Monday afternoon, Issa’s committee sent out a notice that it would be taking testimony from Ambassador Tom Pickering and retired Adm. Michael Mullen, who led the State Department investigation on Benghazi. Issa gave notice during recent media appearances that he might subpoena additional witnesses. Former Vice President Cheney last week suggested the GOP should subpoena former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
I’m through with the GOP. But I’ll stay on their mailing lists just to waste there resources.
I propose a new dictionary term:
Boehner (pro-nounced: Bow-ner): meaning to have no inclination to challenge others. limp-wristed. Feckless. no ability to lead. Also refers to animals without spines.
“If Gingrich had been Speaker it’s unlikely Obama would have won in 2012.”
Unfortunately Mr. Gingrich is not a virtuous man and can not control his hormone driven behavior.
Well stated. Sometimes we talk as if we thought we were Obama - don’t like somebody? Off with his head.
The thing that has kept our country stable for more than two centuries is that we rely on procedures carried out by different people at different levels and slowly but surely getting to the truth.
The big worry, of course, is that Obama - who has no respect for our system - has corrupted it very heavily by either ignoring it and thus making people distrust it as powerless, or loading the dice so they always fall on his side, usually by suborning or threatening the people in charge of the various parts of the system.
So I absolutely agree that we have to let the different players do their parts, and that it probably won’t be gratifyingly fast, but we also have to stay on top of it at every moment because I think there has never been a more dangerous time for our republic.
We’ve had bad presidents, lazy presidents, mildly and not so mildly corrupt presidents - but never a crazy president with a dictatorial mindset. Until now.
Come January the IRS, with the added power of ObamaCare will be grinding us up like cheap hamburger. A couple of years of that & there will be no more token than conservative resistance in this country.
Unless the ObamaCare and the IRS are gutted before January, we are toast. And we all know that the Republicans don't have the b@lls to bring down ObamaCare, even if they can.
The fix is in people. Wise up.
I’m sure I’m missing other MAJOR seditious events by ObaMao. Feel free to fill in the major issues (but adding the medium and low levels problems would fill a library)
He never had alcoholic beverages with pResident Obama either like the present Speaker (or is Sex the only thing on your mind)?
I mean, I'm trying to figure out what you see that's so sexual about this thread.
Great point! Knowing that, it's probably better to spread testimony across the committees in order to have a broader net. Lies are hard to maintain consistently over time and space.
“I mean, I’m trying to figure out what you see that’s so sexual about this thread.”
I don’t see anything sexual about the thread. My point is that had Mr. Gingrich been more virtuous in his public and private life he might still be Speaker. He would also have been a more viable presidential candidate for many social conservatives. Gingrich did resign in 1999 under an ethics cloud and the exposure of his affair with Calista Bisek who he married a year after his resignation (four months after his divorce). This was his third marriage, both of his prior marriages ending due to affairs he had outside the marriage.
Seeya Boner.
Yep
A single special committee will be a bottleneck just like the ARB committee Hillary created and the 9/11 Omission Commission... a whitewash. A single “special” entity -like a dictatorship- has a better chance of controlling and limiting both the acceptance into evidence of new info and the outflow of information and shaping the narrative, than if there are multiple investigations headed by different people. Multiple investigations will be scrutiinized by a wider audience. Controlling and containing the results would be like herding cats, which will make it harder for aged “the good old boys” to protect eachother.
bump
So let’s DO this!
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