White House Press Secretary Jay Carney repeatedly refused to say on Monday whether the White House would cooperate with a new Benghazi committee.  

Carney said the White House would continue to cooperate with “legitimate” oversight by Congress but refused to say whether he thought the new select committee to be headed up by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. , met that test. And he ripped the decision to create the panel as “highly partisan,” suggesting Republicans — and some media organizations — are simply obsessing over conspiracy theories for political ends. Carney also contended the White House told the truth at the time of the attacks.  

And he left it up to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on whether Democrats should cooperate.  

That didn’t sit well with the GOP. A couple of choice tweets from Rory Cooper, a spokesman from Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.:

“Legitimate Oversight” – searching my Constitution for that term.

— Rory Cooper (@rorycooper) May 5, 2014

Carney: “Our history of cooperation on this issue.” It took a COURT ORDER to get last week’s Benghazi email.

— Rory Cooper (@rorycooper) May 5, 2014

Carney also sought to deflect attention to other issues, including the minimum wage and an unemployment extension:

“What about the American people who want to see Congress actually work for them, who want to see Congress take action to raise the minimum wage or take care of the millions of Americans who are looking for work whose benefits were cut off because Republicans would not extend them, who want Congress to help build on the recovery we’ve seen, 50 months of private-sector job creation, so that we invest in infrastructure, education, or innovation?

They’re doing none of that. Instead, they’re investigating and investigating and investigating investigations and voting, of course, periodically to repeal the Affordable Care Act.”