Democrats: Benghazi select committee operating outside normal budget rules

The five Democrats who sit on the House Select Committee charged with investigating the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, say the committee is being funded outside normal budget rules of the House and are asking for the panel to be included in public hearings on upcoming budget requests.

In a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on House Administration, the Democrats write that standing House committees are funded through a single “primary expense resolution,” whereas the select committee’s budget is set by its establishing resolution, which states that applicable accounts from the House will allocate “such sums as may be necessary” for the committee.

The Democrats say that the select committee was reauthorized with no information about a proposed budget and no limitations on a time frame of its work in a must-pass rules package last month after spending nearly $1.8 million in 2014 and being operational for only part of the year.

That would put the budget on pace for a budget greater than $3 million in 2015, they wrote, and Democrats say there should be a public debate on the amount of time and money Congress plans to spend on the investigation.

“Since House Republicans reauthorized the select committee with yet another blank check, we ask that you include the select committee in your public hearings to discuss — in a transparent way — the expected costs to the American public and how Congress intends to pay for those costs,” reads the letter signed by the five committee Democrats.

Rep. Candice Miller, Michigan Republican and chairman of the Committee on House Administration, said in a response letter that if Democrats had concerns, they should have offered an amendment when the committee was reauthorized.

“A request that the committee have a hearing on the funding needs of a committee that has already been authorized for this Congress more than a month after the House voted to fund it for this Congress is remarkably odd,” Ms. Miller wrote to Rep. Elijah Cummings, Maryland Democrat and ranking member on the select committee.

The committee’s chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican, said recently the committee will continue to operate under the rules and scope as laid out by the House because Democrats refused on multiple occasions to accept a brokered rules package without veto power on subpoenas.

“I am unwilling to let the minority party veto subpoenas when it is clear they have prejudged the outcome of the investigation,” Mr. Gowdy said. “The minority has repeatedly indicated it is unwilling to issue any subpoenas. If subpoenas are necessary for the committee to talk to relevant witnesses or access relevant documents, they will be issued.”

Democrats have objected to how Republicans have handled the committee, and many of them since its formation have said it amounts to little more than a witch hunt targeting the Obama administration, as well as potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time of the attack.

Mr. Gowdy and Mr. Cummings have butted heads recently over the prospect of Mrs. Clinton’s testifying before the committee.

Mr. Cummings said Mr. Gowdy approached him last year to help facilitate an appearance by Mrs. Clinton, who had indicated a willingness to testify as early as December of last year. But Mr. Gowdy has said he wants Mrs. Clinton to appear only after the State Department produces documents he’s requested.

A House Intelligence Committee report released last year mostly cleared the CIA of any intentional wrongdoing in the run-up to the attack that left four Americans dead, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, though it said the agency should have more quickly changed the talking points that had initially said the attack was a protest against a video, which turned out to be wrong.

But Republicans say there are still unanswered questions surrounding the attack.

“I will continue to move the investigation forward in a fair and impartial manner, but I will not allow the minority’s political games and unreasonable demands to interfere with the investigation,” Mr. Gowdy said in the statement last week. “The time for negotiations has passed, and the committee is moving on under the rules and scope approved by Congress.”