Snubbing GOP Report, Boehner Names GOP Chairman to Non-Existent Panel

This morning, Yahoo News reported that – in his rush to soothe his Tea Party base – Speaker Boehner reappointed Rep. Trey Gowdy to head the Select Committee on Benghazi.  There is a problem, though:

…Boehner named a chairman to a panel that does not yet exist. Because the Benghazi committee is select and not permanent, the House will have to vote again to re-create it when Congress returns for a new session in January…The cost of the committee also raised questions…could cost up to $3.3 million to operate. House Republicans have not released a final cost of the panel for the session of Congress that is wrapping up.

This – even after a House Republican-led investigative report on Benghazi concluded what Americans have always known:

It found no evidence of an intelligence failure before the attacks. It praised the security efforts and bravery of CIA personnel, and found no evidence that a CIA team at the compound had been ordered to "stand down." It said there was no missed opportunity for a military rescue. It rejected the idea that the CIA in Libya was involved in any unauthorized activity, including running guns to Syria. And it found no evidence anyone had been intimidated from talking about what went down in Benghazi.

In other words, like six investigations before it, it found that the allegations of the Benghazi-is-worse-than-Watergate crowd were pretty much the stuff of fantasy.  [11/24]

Republican Senator Jeff Flakehas already said"thatwe ought to move beyond that."  Speaker Boehner, it's time to end the witch hunts and the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars.