Benghazi Select Committee to Meet With Victims' Families This Week

Members of the House's Select Committee on Benghazi will meet this week with family members of the four Americans who were killed at the Libyan embassy two years ago, members of the committee told National Journal.

The meeting will be the first between members of the select committee, which was formed in May, and victims' families. The families have appeared before Congress in the past, having testified before the House Oversight Committee just a year after the initial attacks.

The committee will not be releasing the schedule for the meeting out of respect for the families and their privacy, said ranking member Elijah Cummings of Maryland.

"It's an important conversation because I think it will help us to refocus on the fact that there are people who lost their loved ones. And if they have questions that are still out there, I think we want to know what those questions are," Cummings said.

The meeting comes just days before members leave Washington for their five-week August recess.

"While it may not be the easiest conversation, I look forward to it because I also think it's important that we let them know that we truly care and that they are not forgotten," Cummings added.

"Members of the Select Committee are meeting privately this week with family members of the Americans killed in the Benghazi attacks so we could hear from them directly," a spokesman for committee chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said in a statement. "In order to respect their privacy, the Committee will have no further statement on these meetings."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters in May that two of the families had reached out to members of the House and urged them not to open another investigation into the matter. Nonetheless, Cummings said that all four families would be present.