15 House Republicans call for special panel to investigate Benghazi

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) on Tuesday introduced a resolution calling for the creation of a select committee to investigate the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, and the Obama administration's response.

The resolution calls for combining “all existing investigations into a single and exhaustive review of the event and the subsequent revelations that followed,” Wolf said, similar to the panels established during Watergate and the Iran Contra scandals of the 1970s. It already has 14 co-sponsors.

The panel would be composed of the top Republican and Democrat on the five panels of jurisdiction — Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, Judiciary, Armed Services and Oversight and Government Reform — plus five more Republicans appointed by the Speaker and two Democrats appointed by the minority leader.

“It is our responsibility as a Congress to legislate and educate the American people on the circumstances surrounding the attack,” Wolf said in a statement announcing the resolution. “We owe it to the families of the victims to fully investigate this tragedy in full and open hearings to have a clearer understanding of what happened.”

Wolf is the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Justice Department.

U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died in the attack. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, has been under intense Republican criticism for initially linking it to a peaceful protest gone awry, which has thrown her potential nomination for secretary of State into question.

---