House Democrats Will Stay On Benghazi Committee

WASHINGTON -- House Democrats will remain on the GOP's Benghazi committee , even though they think it's sham, a senior Democratic aide told The Huffington Post.

"During a meeting with Leader Pelosi, Democratic Members of the Select Committee on Benghazi made the decision to remain as participants of the panel for now," said the aide.

There had been talk of Democrats ditching the panel in protest of what they say is chairman Trey Gowdy's goal: to tank Hillary Clinton's poll numbers in the 2016 presidential race. Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, maintains he is leading a legitimate investigation into the 2012 attack at a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, which took place when Clinton was secretary of state.

Democrats' decision to stay on the committee to push back on Republicans ' efforts comes a day after the panel grilled Clinton for 11 hours and produced little new information. Gowdy himself couldn't point to anything new  that he learned from her testimony.

So far, the committee has cost more than $4.5 million and hasn't turned up much. There have been seven previous investigations into the 2012 incident and none found any wrongdoing by Clinton.

Democrats later put out a statement calling the committee "a taxpayer-funded expedition" targeted at Clinton.

"After meeting with Leader Pelosi today, we are calling on Speaker Boehner to immediately shut down this abusive, wasteful, and obviously partisan effort," they wrote. "If the Speaker rejects our request, Democrats will continue to participate at this point in order to make sure the facts are known and the conspiracy theories are debunked."