A probe of the 2012 Benghazi attacks may have violated congressional ethics rules, House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday after a top Republican indicated it aimed to hurt Democrat Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy.

Angry Democrats called for the Benghazi panel to be disbanded following the remarks on Tuesday evening by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. He is campaigning to be the next speaker of the House when the current speaker, John Boehner, retires on Oct. 30.

Some House Republicans said Thursday they thought McCarthy should apologize for, or explain, his remarks. Others expressed understanding for what they saw as a media stumble.

"Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?" McCarthy told Fox News on Tuesday. "But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her (poll) numbers today? Her numbers are dropping."

Democrats said McCarthy's comments revealed the truth about the committee and countered long-standing Republican claims that the panel was set up to find out what happened in the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya that left four Americans dead.

Pelosi said Thursday that political efforts by the Benghazi committee could violate ethics laws that ban using taxpayers' dollars for political purposes.

"The question is, is this an ethics violation of the rules of the House?" she said. "I think he (McCarthy) clearly, gleefully claimed that this had a political purpose and had a political success."

But Boehner, a Republican, said the committee would continue its work. "This investigation has never been about former Secretary of State Clinton and never will be," Boehner said in a statement that did not mention McCarthy.

McCarthy's words were widely considered a major gaffe. They were some of his first public remarks after jumping into the race to replace Boehner as speaker. He is the leading candidate for the post.

Republican Representative Thomas Massie told CNN that McCarthy should apologize to the Benghazi panel's chairman, Representative Trey Gowdy, "because he's diminished the work that Chairman Gowdy has done."

"I'd advise him to say something" publicly explaining the comments, Representative Adam Kinzinger, a Republican, told Reuters.

The Benghazi committee is "not always the easiest thing to explain, and to the extent it was not said articulately, it's a shame," said Representative Bill Flores, head of the Republican Study Committee, Congress' largest conservative group. "But I've had my share of foul-ups with the media myself."