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Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (C) speaks while flanked by five fellow Democrats (L-R) Rep. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-CA), Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), Rep. Linda Sanchez, (D-CA) and Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) during a news conference on Capitol Hill, May 21, 2014 in Washington, D.C. Mark Wilson, Getty Images

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Wednesday named the five Democrats she's appointed to the new House Select Committee on Benghazi. Even though Democrats have dismissed the committee's investigation as unnecessary and politically-motivated, they said that they're taking part to ensure that Republicans don't produce anymore misleading information about the 2012 attack on a U.S. compound in Libya that left four Americans dead.

"The Republican obsession with Benghazi has not been about the victims, the families or the country," Pelosi said.

She pointed out that Congress has already conducted eight reviews of the attack, that 25,000 documents have been released and millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent to investigate what happened in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.

It is "not necessary" to participate in a "partisan exercise once again," Pelosi said.

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland (the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee) will lead the five Democrats on the 12-member committee. He will be joined by Reps. Adam Smith of Washington (the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee), Adam Schiff of California (a member of the Intelligence Committee), Linda Sanchez of California (a member of the Ways and Means Committee), and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois (a member of the Armed Services Committee).

The five Democrats join the seven Republicans on the panel, led by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.

Cummings said he agreed to participate for two reasons. Firstly, he said that as a leader of the Oversight Committee, he's "seen firsthand how abusive the Republicans have been during this investigation -- they've issued unilateral subpoenas, they've made substantiated accusations... they falsely accused the secretary of state of misleading Congress about reducing security in Benghazi."

Additionally, Cummings said he and other members of Congress owe it to the families of the four American victims "to bring some minimal level of balance to this process and check false claims wherever they may arise."

He added, "We need someone in that room to simply defend the truth."

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Democrats join Benghazi investigation to "defend the truth"

Democrats had threatened to boycott a new House panel to investigate the Obama administration's handling of the deadly 2012 assault on US posts in Benghazi, Libya. On Wednesday, they relented, citing need to keep check on GOP.

House Democrats will participate in the new Benghazi committee after all.

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Minority leader Nancy Pelosi of California on Wednesday named the Democrats' full allotment of five members to the special 12-person panel, which was created by the GOP House leadership to continue probing the deadly Sept. 11, 2012, assault on US diplomatic buildings in Benghazi, Libya.

US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died that day. Many Republicans accuse the Obama administration of misleading the public about the nature of the attack, which occurred just prior to the 2012 presidential elections. Democrats, in turn, accuse Republicans of distorting the facts surrounding Benghazi and keeping it alive for political reasons.

We cant simply let the Republicans run the show, said Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee and one of Ms. Pelosis choices for the panel.

Some Democrats thought Pelosi should boycott the panels work. They call the committee simply a mechanism to keep the Benghazi issue open as the 2014 midterm election approaches, after numerous other House panels had already thoroughly examined available Benghazi evidence.

Some disgruntled left-leaning commentators say Pelosi has thus fallen into a GOP trap by participating and implicitly giving the committee bipartisan legitimacy.

I suppose if the GOP steers the committee entirely off the rails, Dems can just begin the boycott later, writes Brian Beutler at The New Republic.

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House Democrats to join new Benghazi probe. Prudence, or worry? (+video)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. (Kathryn Scott Osler, Denver Post file)

WASHINGTON House Democrats will participate in the special, Republican-led select committee investigating the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, despite serious concerns within the party that the inquiry is an election-year ploy to energize core GOP voters.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced Wednesday that she will appoint the full complement of five Democrats on the 12-member panel, tapping lawmakers who have been deeply involved in previous congressional investigations of the Sept. 11, 2012, assault on the U.S. diplomatic outpost.

Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, died in the attack when militants stormed the mission. Republicans have accused the Obama administration of misleading Americans about a terrorist attack weeks before the election.

"I believe we need someone in that room to simply defend the truth," said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, to reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference.

Cummings will serve as the ranking member on the select committee. Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, had selected Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., a seasoned prosecutor, to be the panel's chairman along with six other Republicans.

Democrats who also will participate are Adam Smith of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Armed Services panel; Adam Schiff of California, on the Intelligence Committee; Linda Sanchez, also of California, who is on Ways and Means' oversight subcommittee, and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who serves on Armed Services.

Democrats have been divided over whether to boycott the investigation, the eighth probe into the attack. Some Democrats have called the new inquiry a political sham designed to embarrass the Obama administration and rough up former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential candidate.

Other Democrats have maintained that they must participate in the select committee to ensure they have a role in questioning witnesses. "We can't simply let the Republicans run the show," Smith said.

The special investigation means high-profile hearings with Republicans likely to target current and former administration officials, including Clinton.

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House Democrats to participate in Benghazi investigation

It wasn't all that long ago that Republicans used gay marriage as a tool to drive Election Day turnout. But as public opinion on the issue has turned and courts strike down same-sex marriage bans, gay rights is evolving into a wedge issue for Democrats to wield.

Consider Pennsylvania, where Democrats have lambasted Republican Gov. Tom Corbett for comparing gay marriage to incest. Facing a tough re-election campaign, Corbett decided this week not to appeal a federal court ruling striking down the state's ban of gay marriage.

Or Colorado, where Democratic Sen. Mark Udall is hitting his Republican challenger for casting votes that denied gay people protection from discrimination. In Arizona, Democrats plan to hammer Republican legislators who passed a law allowing businesses to refuse to serve gays for religious reasons.

"We're just beginning to see this, and we will see a lot more in the midterms," said Richard Socarides, an activist who was President Bill Clinton's adviser on gay rights. "It will be an incredible shift by the time we get to the (presidential) election in 2016."

That election will arrive 20 years after Republicans in Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited federal recognition of same-sex marriage. Clinton signed the bill defensively, worried the GOP would use it as a campaign issue, Socarides said. Republican activists put anti-gay marriage initiatives on the ballot in 11 states in 2004, helping President George W. Bush win re-election with the support of conservative religious voters motivated to turn out to support the bans.

Connie Mackey, head of the conservative Family Research Council's Political Action Committee, said that's still a solid strategy. Voters still oppose gay marriage, she argued, and Republicans should not let themselves get faked out by overconfident Democrats.

"The people in the states think one way and the establishment and the courts are showing a different face," Mackey said.

But gay marriage, supported by less than one-third of Americans in 2004, is now supported by a solid majority in recent polls, with approval highest among younger voters. Some Republicans believe that mounting public support represents a danger to their party, and they are scrambling to prevent Democrats from using the issue of gay rights in the same way some in their own party did for years.

"They want to bait Republicans into talking about the issue in a way that ties them to a negative, national Republican brand," said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who hasn't taken a position on gay marriage. "They need to stir up their base and create outrage."

Nevada Republicans dropped their opposition to gay marriage last month from the state party's platform, and a national campaign is underway to remove such language from the national party platform in 2016. Major Republican donors have formed a coalition to push the party to become more gay-friendly.

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Shifting Views on Gay Marriage Now Favor Democrats

Democrats named five lawmakers to the U.S. House select committee investigating the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took the advice of senior lawmakers who said it would be better to have people in the room for hearings that Democrats have criticized as overtly political. Other Democratic lawmakers had favored boycotting them entirely.

I believe we need someone in that room to simply defend the truth, said Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He will be the ranking Democrat on the Benghazi panel, Pelosi said.

Other Democratic members named are Representatives Adam Smith of Washington state, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee; Adam Schiff and Linda Sanchez of California; and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois.

Congress started investigating the Benghazi attacks less than a month after they occurred on Sept. 11, 2012, calling attention to the Obama administrations initial statement that the violence stemmed from spontaneously inspired demonstrations over an anti-Islamic video.

Officials later said attackers with links to terrorist groups stormed a diplomatic compound and set fire to it. That attack, and another one hours later at a CIA annex, killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

The House voted 232-186 on May 8 to create a select committee to investigate the attacks and the White House response, which Republicans have called a cover-up.

Democrats have said the panel is politically driven, designed partly to damage Hillary Clinton, a potential presidential candidate in 2016 who was secretary of state at the time of the attacks.

Pelosi of California, who has said that past House inquiries didnt give Democrats an adequate say in decisions, met yesterday for an hour with House Speaker John Boehner to discuss terms of participation in the panel.

Representative Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican and former prosecutor who will lead the committee, said in an interview yesterday that the seven Republican members will hold an organizational meeting this week.

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Democrats Join House Benghazi Panel They Opposed Forming