Pelosi Attempts to Derail The Benghazi Investigation With Hyper-partisan Democrats

Democrat Minority leader Nancy Pelosi has decided to participate in the Benghazi select committee and appointed five Democrats to serve on it after weeks of talking about boycotting the committee.

As I predicted earlier, Rep. Pelosi decided to get on board, but to appoint virulently partisan hacks to the committee in an effort to sabotage it and keep what happened that night in Benghazi a question mark.Not a single one of them has any respect for what the committee is trying to accomplish

The ranking Democrat will be none other than Elijah Cummings, who is already facing ethics charges over his behavior as ranking Democrat of the House Oversight committee.If Rep. Pelosi actually had any respect at all for what the committee is attempting to accomplish and any desire of actually getting to the truth of what happened,he's the last person she would have appointed.

“I believe we need someone in that room to simply defend the truth - defend the truth - and that is why I’ve agreed to serve,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) explained during a press conference announcing Pelosi’s decision.

'Defend the 'truth' coverup as voiced by the Obama White House, of course, at all costs.

Rep. Adam Smith is the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. He's been a loyal partisan soldier and has gone public a number of times repeating the talking points on how the entire Benghazi investigation is nothing but a “political witch hunt.”

Rep. Tammy Duckworth ( D-Il) is one of Smith's reliably partisan Democrat allies on the House Armed Services Committee.

Linda Sanchez,(D-CA)from the Ways and Means committee knows nothing about foreign policy or national security, but can be relied on to vote the way she's told.

Rep Adam Schiff(D-CA)a member of the House Committee on Appropriations is another Democrat who has already said publicly that Democrats should refuse to participate in the Select Committee because it's a 'colossal waste of time' and a partisan witch hunt.'

Today Schiff said “The decision was ultimately made that we need someone in that room to stand up for the truth and that will be our responsibility to make sure that this does not become a subcommittee on talking points,” Schiff said.

“I agree with my colleagues that this is a committee that should not have been formed,” Smith said, calling it a “purely partisan and political effort.”

Again, the same language...circle the wagons, defend the coverup and obstruct, obstruct obstruct. Nothing like going into these proceedings with an open mind and a spirit of inquiry!

He added that Democrats needed to be involved to make sure that the committee “doesn't become a circus.”

Ah, but a circus is exactly what these Democrats Pelosi picked for the committee are there to do their best to turn the committee into..a circus that dissolves in partisan shouting, and ends up making sure that the Benghazi coverup continues. That's the strategy.

What's interesting is that Speaker Boehner apparently has the power to circumvent this nonsense.

Contrary to popular belief, to a certain degree as limited by the Constitution each session of congress decides how it will function and the rules are worked out through the Rules committee.There's always a great deal of carryover from previous sessions, but Congress does vote to adopt the rules under which it operates.

A House special select committee, according to the Rules adopted by the 113th Congress on January 3rd, 2013 states explicitly that it is the Speaker of the House who appoints the members of a select committee once a resolution is passed in the House to convene one.

There is nothing in the rules that says the Speaker must accept without challenge select committee appointments from the minority leader. It's customarily done, but it is not required under the House rules.

There is nothing stopping Speaker Boehner from quietly speaking to Rep. Pelosi and telling her in no uncertain terms that given that her choices for the select committee have already publicly announced that the select committee is of no value and that their sole purpose is to obstruct it, she needs to appoint different choices...especially in the case of Cummings, who is already facing ethics violations charges for his previous behavior on the oversight committee.

And if she refuses, there's also nothing stopping him in the House rules from simply calling these appointments unacceptable and explaining why publicly. Moreover, Nancy Pelosi knows that. She certainly has an insider's knowledge of how the rules can be manipulated, based on her behavior as Speaker when ObamaCare and the Stimulus were passed.

In fact, there's nothing stopping the Speaker from doing this except John Boehner. If he fails to carry out this basic responsibility, he just made Select Committee Trey Gowdy's job a lot more difficult.