Dem Rep. Schiff calls on party to boycott new Benghazi investigation

A Democratic member of the House intelligence committee called Sunday for his party to boycott the newly announced committee tasked with probing the Benghazi attacks, dismissing new evidence that Republicans have called a 'smoking gun' showing the White House politicized the tragedy.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told 'Fox News Sunday' that Democrats should not give the select committee more 'credibility' by joining.

'I think it's a colossal waste of time,' he said. 'I don't think it makes sense, really, for Democrats to participate.'

Schiff, calling the committee a 'tremendous red herring,' acknowledged he doesn't know what Democratic leadership will decide.

Fox News was told on Friday, when House Speaker John Boehner announced that the House would vote on creating a special committee, that the panel would be bipartisan.

Schiff's comments, though, raise the prospect that his party could try to define the committee as a political vessel by sitting it out. The remarks reflect how the committee, which has not yet been formally approved, already is a political football. It would begin its investigative work in the heat of the midterm election season, poised to level damaging charges against the Obama administration at a sensitive time.

Leading Republicans were adamant that the committee is vital to get to the bottom of what happened in the days and weeks following the Sept. 11, 2012 attack which killed four Americans including a U.S. ambassador.

The tipping point for those, like Boehner, who were hesitant about forming a select committee was the release of an email that showed a White House adviser reviewing talking points for then-U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice. The email stressed the role of protests over an anti-Islam video -- which is the faulty explanation Rice went on to use to describe the Benghazi attack's origin on Sunday shows after the tragedy.

The White House maintains that email referenced protests elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa, but Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said that claim 'doesn't pass the laugh test.'

She told 'Fox News Sunday' the email shows the need for a select committee. Ayotte said there still hasn't been a clear explanation of why Rice connected the attack to a video.

'The video story clearly came from the White House,' she said, calling it a 'political explanation leading up to an election.'

'This did not fit their narrative,' Ayotte said.