WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats on a special House committee investigating the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, have complained that the panel's Republican chairman has excluded them from crucial steps in the investigation while Republicans meet with witnesses.
In a strongly worded letter, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the panel's top Democrat, said the panel's chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., has used different standards for Republicans and Democrats and has held secret meetings with witnesses from the State Department and other agencies.
"Perhaps most importantly," Cummings wrote in a Jan. 23 letter, Gowdy has "withheld or downplayed information when it undermines the allegations we are investigating." The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter, which comes before the panel is set to hold its third public hearing Tuesday.
Gowdy said in response Monday that he has the authority to unilaterally subpoena witnesses, but he promised to give Democrats a week's notice before issuing such a subpoena.
Cummings' four-page missive signals a growing partisan divide as an inquiry that began with promises of bipartisanship has devolved into finger pointing and accusations. Gowdy and Cummings set a bipartisan tone in September as the committee conducted its first public hearing. A second hearing in December was also largely cordial in tone.
Gowdy has said he will pursue the facts of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on a U.S. post in eastern Libya that killed Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador, and three other Americans.
"Facts are neither Republican for Democrat," he said when the panel was created last May.
Gowdy's approach has drawn criticism from some conservatives, who accuse him of failing to stand up to what they see as resistance from the Obama administration to produce documents and witnesses related to the events in Benghazi, a topic that has been the subject of numerous congressional investigations.
A report by the House Intelligence Committee report last fall found that the CIA and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attacks. Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the panel determined there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria.
Cummings, who has clashed with Republicans such as Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., over Benghazi and other issues, has previously praised Gowdy for a bipartisan approach to the Benghazi inquiry.
But he said in the letter that he and his colleagues have grown increasingly concerned that they are being shut out by the GOP majority. Cummings cited a GOP-approved rule that allows Gowdy to meet privately with committee witnesses and unilaterally issue subpoenas for witnesses or documents "without any public discussion or debate, even if there is significant disagreement from other members of the committee."
He and other Democrats "simply ask for a public debate and a vote by committee members on these actions when there is significant disagreement," Cummings wrote.
The Jan. 23 letter is the third Democrats have sent to Gowdy since November. None of the letters had previously been made public.
In one letter, dated Nov. 24, Cummings told Gowdy the committee inquiry has "taken a sharp turn for the worse and is becoming what you strenuously insisted it would not - another partisan investigation of the Benghazi attacks that blocks Democrats from meaningful participation."