The McCarthy committee’s January 6 gamble faces a big test this spring

WASHINGTON – House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy says he has no regrets about the Republican boycott special committee probing January 6 riots, firing investigation as political work.

McCarthy told NBC News in an interview last week right near the floor. “They’ve written the report and they’re trying to make a story for it instead of trying to get to the truth.”

But with the January 6 committee set to move from the investigative phase to the public phase next month, televised hearingsMcCarthy’s decision last summer to stay away from the council will probably face its biggest test yet.

Unlike the first Trump impeachment hearings in 2019, former president loyalists will not be in a position to “interfere,” in the words of a GOP source, during the proceedings on Nov. January 6. Specifically, they will not be able to aggressively question witnesses, refute or interrupt Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and other Democrats, or introduce evidence of their own. surname.

Instead, the hearings will be tightly controlled and choreographed, focusing on areas like the plot to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory; intelligence and security incidents related to the attack; and what former President Donald Trump and his inner circle did during the hours-long riot that claimed several lives.

That has drawn criticism from some Republicans for McCarthy.

“I would say it was a total strategic mistake,” said a senior House GOP aide. “You will have a united front, you will not have a performance.

“One of the reasons the Democrats’ impeachment hearings failed so spectacularly in 2019 is because you [GOP Reps.] Elise Stefanik and Jim Jordan and Doug Collins and Mike Turner – all jamming because they’re sitting on the board,” the aide added. And they can push back whatever the Democrats are trying to pressure Gordon Sondland and Fiona Hill About. They won’t have it this time. “

McCarthy’s decision to remove his members from the panel on January 6 – a response to Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocking two of his picks – means that Republicans support Trump for the most part. has been left open about what is available for public hearings. Aside from the public reporting, Republicans do not know about the leaders the committee is pursuing, what witnesses are saying in the 750 filings the panel has privately conducted, and what’s in the nearly 90,000 documents. whether the council received it.

“It was an error,” said the GOP aide. “If Republicans are on a committee and can get on any of this right now, they can leak everything, they can make up their own stories. “

In that sense, Democrats are not complaining.

Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Member of the January 6 committee and constitutional law expert who led the 2021 impeachment team that indicted Trump over his role in the Electrical attack Capitol, said the absence of Trump allies on the panel had made their job easier.

“Institutionally, I think it was a bad decision” for McCarthy to boycott the panel, Raskin said.

“Politically, I think it’s a great decision, because we can get the job done,” he added with a grin.

McCarthy blames Trump, then backers

The January 6 attacks put many GOP lawmakers in a difficult position – but McCarthy in particular. As violence raged on the Capitol, McCarthy called Trump and urged him cancel violent mobs of his supporters; An argument ensued and the clear words were broken.

A week later, McCarthy took to the floor and declared that Trump was “responsible” for the riot and should have acted when the violence broke out. But after realizing the conservative establishment was on Trump’s side, McCarthy quickly reversed course.

A few months later, Thompson signed an agreement with Congressman John Katko, RN.Y., on legislation to create an independent 9/11-style bipartisan commission to investigate the events of the 6th. January, McCarthy come out in oppositionthough he directed Katko to reach a compromise with Thompson.

With the independent committee stalled, Pelosi unilaterally formed a House selection committee. But she turned down two of McCarthy’s five picks for the panel – GOP Representative. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana – say they made statements that could jeopardize the “integrity of the election”.

Pelosi told McCarthy she would seat three other Republicans — Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois, Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota and Troy Nehls of Texas — and suggested he pick two others. McCarthy refused and withdrew all Republicans from the council.

If McCarthy doesn’t make the council a bipartisan body, then Pelosi will. She added two out of 10 Republicans voted to impeach Trump on June 6: Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. The remaining seven members are Democrats.

GOP .’s rival investigation

More than eight months after those moves, McCarthy — the favorite to replace Pelosi as speaker if Republicans win back the House in November — still stands by his decision.

He called Pelosi’s blocking of the minority leader from choosing members of a select committee unprecedented and said Republicans were conducting their own investigation into the insecurity on June 6. January, an incident for which he has repeatedly blamed Pelosi and the Democrats.

“Speakers who want to control the minority leader can put on the committee. Was she concerned about what we found out? ” McCarthy said in his interview with NBC News.

“So we conducted our own investigation. We’ve got sergeants and the Capitol Police to join us. We’ll have our report,” he continued. It will really [get at] the truth about why we didn’t prepare well that day, what decisions were made that made us unprepared and what we can do to make sure it never happen again. ”

Nehls, a former Fort Bend County sheriff, said he is helping with the competitive GOP investigation and plans to pass his findings on to McCarthy.

“We will expose the truth, no doubt about it,” he said.

But Nehls admits that Republicans like him will be able to fight Democrats in televised hearings on January 6 if they stay on the select committee.

“There’s no question about that,” Nehls said. “Maybe that’s why [Pelosi] didn’t want me on the committee. “

Pelosi has said she’s fine with Nehls serving on the panel, even though he was one of 120 Republicans who voted to oppose the certification of the 2020 election results in both Arizona and Pennsylvania. Those votes were “not my criteria” for removing Banks and Jordan, she said.

In a brief interview, Jordan considered the committee a “complete political operation,” while another top Trump ally, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said Democrats. and the media needs to get past 6/1.

“The American people are fed up with dramatizing a riot that happened on the Capitol here,” said Greene, who said Americans are more focused on border security, inflation and prices. high gasoline.

“They’re sick and tired of January 6th – it’s over, OK?”

at Blogtuan.info – Source: nbcnews.com – Read the original article here