John Boehner

WASHINGTON — Divided House Democrats are weighing whether to participate in a new investigation of the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, or boycott the election-year inquiry of a tragedy they accuse Republicans of politicizing.

Party leaders will meet with rank-and-file members today to decide the next step after Republicans the day before rammed through a resolution creating a special select committee to examine the Sept. 11, 2012, assault. Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed when militants stormed the diplomatic outpost.

The vote Thursday to create the special committee was 232-186. Seven Democrats, many of whom face tough re-elections in November, broke ranks and joined the GOP majority.

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-3rd, of Butler, voted for the committee.

In a statement, he said “the facts surrounding that tragedy have been clouded and concealed by our own executive branch.

“The Obama administration’s own dubious actions have made the establishment of a special committee not a choice but a necessity.”

The panel’s investigation will be the eighth on Benghazi and means high-profile hearings in the months leading up to the elections, with Republicans grilling current and former Obama administration officials. Certain to be called to testify is former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrats’ potential 2016 presidential candidate.

Democrats are split over whether to boycott the select committee, which will have a 7-5 Republican edge in membership. They are concerned that their participation would grant legitimacy to what they believe will be a partisan forum. But they also worry that if they avoid it they won’t have the chance to counter GOP claims and defend potential witnesses.

“This doesn’t need to be, shouldn’t be and will not be a partisan process,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a speech on the House floor promising pursuit of the truth.

Democrats have their doubts.

“This is 100 percent pure politics,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said Friday. She charged that Republicans are exploiting the families of the four victims of the Benghazi attack by keeping the issue alive.

Wasserman Schultz accused Republicans of doing all in their power “to keep this in the news,” saying the GOP is returning its focus to Benghazi now because its staunch opposition to the Affordable Care Act “has lost its luster.”

Said Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.: “It’s hard to trust what Speaker Boehner is doing with this new select committee.” Becerra, D-Calif., chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, pointed to Boehner’s comments a month ago that a special panel was unnecessary.

After the vote, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was noncommittal about whether Democrats would participate on the special committee, but assailed the new probe. “Our nation deserves better than yet another deeply partisan and political review,” she said.

Boehner’s legislation creates the special committee through the end of the year. It will have to be reapproved when a new Congress begins in January or go out of existence.