Longtime Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton, leader of Sept. 11 panel, dies at 94

Lee Hamilton, the long-serving Indiana Democrat and a leading voice in U.S. foreign affairs who helped oversee investigations into the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has died at 94.

He passed away on Tuesday.

Hamilton died peacefully at his home in Bloomington, Indiana, his son Doug Hamilton confirmed, without a specific cause.

Hamilton also famously led a congressional probe into the Reagan administration’s Iran-Contra affair during his three decades in Congress, representing a rural southern Indiana district.

He was at the forefront of congressional opposition to the 1991 Persian Gulf War waged by President George H.W. Bush and he advocated continued economic sanctions against Iraq before military action over its invasion of Kuwait.

After deciding against seeking re-election in 1998, Hamilton stated that the U.S. needed to be regarded globally as more than just a leader of military coalitions.

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In 2003, he said, "The United States must be — and must be seen as — an optimistic and benign power. We must speak and act as a source of optimism, a beacon of freedom, a benign power forging a consensus approach toward a world of peace and growth and freedom. And American power must be accompanied by American generosity."

Former President Barack Obama presented Hamilton with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.

During the ceremony, Obama said Hamilton was a man "widely admired" on both sides of the aisle "for his honesty, his wisdom, and consistent commitment to bipartisanship."