Republicans Named to Benghazi Committee (Video)

By Emma Dumain and Daniel Newhauser Posted at 12:42 p.m. May 9

Republicans named to the Benghazi Committee include Roby, middle, and Roskam, right. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

Speaker John A. Boehner on Friday announced the Republicans who will serve on the special committee to investigate the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

The Ohio Republican stood on the House floor and read off the names of the selected members before a chamber hushed in anticipation, noting in a statement following the selections that the investigation is about getting truth for the victims families.

These members have each demonstrated a commitment to this goal, and I have confidence that they will lead a serious, fact-based inquiry. As I have expressed to each of them, I expect this committee to carry out an investigation worthy of the American lives lost in Benghazi, Boehner said in the statement.

The appointees are Reps. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Peter Roskam of Illinois, Mike Pompeo of Kansas, Martha Roby of Alabama and Susan W. Brooks of Indiana. Boehner named Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina the chairman-designate earlier this week.

Boehners appointments were highly anticipated but the members he chose were not especially surprising to staff or reporters. Most of them had, in fact, been floated as contenders for the job throughout the week, and in choosing them, Boehner satisfied a wide breadth of constituencies within his conference, be they ideological, jurisdictional and in some cases, personal.

Boehner chose members who sit on most of the major committees who have investigated the Beghazi attack. He also chose members who have deep roots in the conservative movement while also ensuring leadership has a trusted ear on the committee.

Roskam, the highest ranking member on who will serve on the committee, is the conferences chief deputy whip. As a sitting member of leadership, he will arguably be Boehners most steady hand on the panel, and is a former trial lawyer.

Jordan was widely said to be vying for a slot on the Benghazi panel and is, like Gowdy, a member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the lead panel investigating the attacks thus far. A former chairman of the Republican Study Committee, he has a conservative pedigree sure to satisfy far-right members of the base who want the Benghazi committee to be sufficiently aggressive in its lines of inquiry.

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Republicans Named to Benghazi Committee (Video)

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