WASHINGTON -- Outgoing House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) started damage control on Thursday, seeking to quell calls for Republicans to disband the Select Committee on Benghazi.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Boehner's likely successor, had praised the committee -- which was established to investigate the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya -- for hurting 2016 Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton's poll numbers.
Democrats jumped at the comments, calling for Boehner to immediately disband the committee and accusing Republicans of creating it for the sole purpose of attacking the former secretary of state during her bid for the White House.
“This investigation has never been about former Secretary of State Clinton and never will be," Boehner said in a statement Thursday. "Indeed, the Select Committee’s very existence is only the result of the Obama administration’s obstruction of routine congressional investigations and its failure to properly comply with subpoenas and document requests."
The statement is further evidence of the slip-up McCarthy made, which has also been criticized by members of his own party as "inappropriate."
Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) told CNN on Wednesday that McCarthy's comments were wrong.
“I totally disagree with those comments,” Amash said Wednesday. “I think [they] should be a concern."
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), another conservative member, took issue with McCarthy's comment as well.
McCarthy made the comments during an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity on Tuesday.
"Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?" he said. "But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee, what are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping, why? Because she's untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) scolded Republicans Thursday for creating the committee "with a political purpose in mind."
“It’s really an ethical question," Pelosi told reporters. "It makes the whole operation practically an unethical operation. I think the Republicans should shut it down."
Pelosi implied that at some point Democrats may stop participating in the Benghazi Committee investigation.
"How long we will participate depends on how serious they are. And we haven’t seen any signs of seriousness," she said.
This post has been updated with comments from Pelosi.
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