Report: GOP wants $3M for Benghazi panel

House Republicans want to spend as much as $3.3 million on the House Select Committee on Benghazi this year, USA Today reports.

The newspaper said that would be more than the budget this year for either the House Ethics Committee or the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

A document House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office provided to USA Today showed the financial allotments Republicans want for the special committee.

{mosads}Breaking down the $3.3 million, Republicans want $2.2 million to spend as the majority party, leaving just more than $1 million for Democrats, the report said.

The panel has seven GOP lawmakers and five Democrats, and is expected to have a staff of 30 people, the newspaper reported. 

The Benghazi panel’s budget would be just more than the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s budget, which was $3 million for 2014. That panel consists of 25 lawmakers and 27 staff members. In 2013, the committee spent $2.5 million, the report said.

The 2014 budget for the Ethics Committee is more than $3 million, with 10 lawmakers and a staff of 25.

A spokeswoman for the Benghazi committee’s chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), told USA Today that the $3.3 million would come from already appropriated funding and would be a “high end estimate.” 

“This money funds the functions of an investigatory committee and ensures sufficient funds are available to the Republicans and Democrats at a two-thirds, one-third split, per typical committee allocation,” Amanda Duvall said. “These costs include salaries for staff, technology, IT support, publications and document management for classified information.”

The special committee to investigate the 2012 Benghazi attacks, which was created in May, has no deadline to produce a final report.