WASHINGTON — The House Benghazi committee’s Republican chairman is ignoring statements by his own former lawyer indicating that the U.S. military acted properly on the night of the deadly Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Libya, the panel’s Democrats said.

Reps. Elijah Cummings and Adam Smith said Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., omitted the lawyer’s comments when he fired back at the Defense Department for criticizing the GOP-led investigation into the attacks that killed four Americans.

Gowdy’s actions, coupled with delays that have pushed the 2-year-old inquiry into the heat of the 2016 presidential race, “have damaged the credibility of the Select Committee beyond repair,” Cummings and Smith wrote Sunday to Gowdy.

Cummings of Maryland is the senior Democrat on the Benghazi panel; Smith, of Washington state, is the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. He also serves on the select Benghazi panel.

The criticism by the two Democrats is the latest volley in an escalating, election-year fight over the Benghazi panel’s actions — or inaction. The panel, created in May 2014, has not conducted a public hearing since October when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified.