House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s five choices to sit on the select committee that will investigate the riot at the Capitol on January 6.
Pelosi said that Ranking Judiciary Committee Member Jim Jordan — a close ally of Donald Trump — and Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Banks cannot be on the committee because they might jeopardize “the integrity of the investigation.”
She said it with a straight face so I guess she thinks it’s true.
For his part, McCarthy threatened to pull all the GOP members from the Committee unless Pelosi changed her mind.
“With respect for the integrity of the investigation, with an insistence on the truth and with concern about statements made and actions taken by these Members, I must reject the recommendations of Representatives Banks and Jordan to the Select Committee,” Pelosi said in a statement. “The unprecedented nature of January 6th demands this unprecedented decision.”
The appointment of Trump supporters would ruin everything. No one is supposed to defend Trump or the Republicans. The GOP members will be present in order to give a patina of “bipartisanship” to the proceedings.
As CNN points out, because there is one Republican who has agreed to be on the committee — Liz Cheney — it will still be “bipartisan.” McCarthy won’t be able to pull her off the committee.
The committee will still have Republican representation from one member: Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump who was one of Pelosi’s eight choices to serve on the committee. Cheney’s participation keeps the committee bipartisan even without anyone appointed by McCarthy.
It’s still bipartisan even though no real Republicans will be there because CNN says so.
So there.
McCarthy issued his own statement, taking the high ground and saying, “We will not participate.”
“Denying the voices of members who have served in the military and law enforcement, as well as leaders of standing committees, has made it undeniable that this panel has lost all legitimacy and credibility,” he said. “Unless Speaker Pelosi reverses course and seats all five Republican nominees, Republicans will not be party to their sham process and will instead pursue our own investigation of the facts.”
A senior Democratic aide familiar with caucus deliberations said many Democratic members were concerned about Banks and Jordan sitting on the committee, based on their past actions and statements. Particularly, members expressed outrage with Banks’s statement in which he blamed “the Left’s authoritarian agenda” for politicizing the committee’s scope. Reports that Jordan had aided then-President Donald Trump in strategizing about how to overturn the election, and the possibility of him testifying before the committee because he spoke to Trump on Jan. 6, made him an unreliable panelist, according to the aide.
Like CNN, the media will claim the proceedings are still “bipartisan” because Cheney — who was appointed to the committee by Pelosi, not McCarthy — will continue to serve. It’s one thing to stand up for your beliefs but quite another to actively seek to undermine your own political party.
This is not about impeachment. It’s about the integrity of Congress, which is threatened by this partisan attempt to destroy Trump and the Republican Party. That Cheney can’t or won’t see that should result in her being kicked out of the Republican caucus.
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