Stop the presses!

Congressional Republicans have been raising the issue of the impending Benghazi hearings to raise money for their political campaigns. What a revoltin’ development! Who knew?

And yet the GOP majority in the U.S. House of Representatives just keeps insisting that the probe isn’t about politics. It’s about the truth, they tell us. They want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Let’s back up a moment.

House Speaker John Boehner announced the creation of a House select committee to be chaired by Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., to examine the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. What did the State Department know and when did it know it? Did State know it was a premeditated terror attack or did it assume wrongly it was a spontaneous response to an anti-Islam video? Did the U.S. do enough to protect the four Americans who died, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/05/07/gowdy_gop_should_not_fundraise_off_the_backs_of_four_murdered_americans.html

To his credit, Chairman Gowdy has said Republicans shouldn’t raise money “on the backs of four murdered Americans.” Good going, Mr. Chairman.

This investigation can be wrapped up in fairly short order, just as the congressional probe of the 1983 attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon was able to do. You’ll recall that attack killed 241 Marines, but other attacks followed and many questioned whether the Reagan administration was doing enough to protect our interests, and our people, against terrorists. The Democratic-led Congress concluded its probe, made constructive recommendations and finished the job with a bipartisan report.

Can this investigation proceed like that one? Let’s hope so.

It needs to start down that path, however, by ensuring that Republican lawmakers stop using the upcoming probe to raise political campaign money.