House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday named Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger to the committee that will examine the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — after refusing to appoint GOP Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks.
Kinzinger, an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump’s role in the melee, said he “humbly” accepted Pelosi’s appointment.
“I swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution — and while this is not the position I expected to be in or sought out, when duty calls, I will always answer,” the Iraq War vet wrote Sunday on Twitter.
“For months, lies and conspiracy theories have been spread, threatening our self-governance. For months, I have said that the American people deserve transparency and truth on how and why thousands showed up to attack our democracy.”
The Illinois pol joins Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming as the only Republicans currently on the select committee.
Both congressional members were the sole GOP lawmakers to vote last month in favor of establishing a select committee in the House to probe the debacle.
Kinzinger will bring “great patriotism to the committee’s mission: to find the facts and protect our Democracy,” Pelosi said in a statement.
But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) fired back Sunday that Pelosi “has played politics” and stacked the deck on the committee by selecting Kinzinger and other members who “share her preconceived narrative” about what happened that day.
“The Speaker has structured this select committee to satisfy her political objectives. She had months to work with Republicans on a reasonable and fair approach to get answers on the events and security failures surrounding Jan. 6,” McCarthy said in a statement.
“Instead, she has played politics. Lost in much of the news coverage is the fact that the Senate has already conducted bipartisan investigations that should serve as a roadmap for the House,” he said. “Speaker Pelosi’s departure from this serious-minded approach has destroyed the select committee’s credibility.”
Pelosi, also of California, had hinted during her Sunday appearance on ABC News’ “This Week” that she was mulling adding Kinzinger.
Host George Stephanopoulos asked her if Kinzinger would be among the lawmakers she would OK for the controversial panel.
“That would be my plan,” Pelosi said.
“You could say that’s the direction that I would be going. He and other Republicans have expressed an interest to serve on the select committee,” she said.
Pelosi said she had wanted to appoint three Republicans initially chosen by McCarthy: US Reps. Rodney Davis (Illinois), Kelly Armstrong (S.D.) and Troy Nehls (Texas). McCarthy also wanted Jordan and Banks on the panel.
But Pelosi said McCarthy withdrew all five reps’ names after she balked at Jordan and Banks, staunch allies of former President Donald Trump.
“The two that I would not appoint, people who would jeopardize the integrity of the investigation. And there’s no way I would tolerate their antics as we seek the truth,” Pelosi said of the pair.
Banks, in an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” said the reason he was pulled from the committee is because finding out what happened on Jan. 6 is secondary to attacking Trump for Pelosi.
“It’s more clear than ever that Nancy Pelosi is not interested in an investigation. She’s only interested in a narrative. She claimed that the reason that she booted me from the committee was because of antics on the part of Jim Jordan and I,” Banks said.
“And in hindsight, what I realized what she means by that now is that we were prepared to ask questions that no one else has asked and demand answers as to why the Capitol was vulnerable to an attack on Jan. 6. Why was there a systemic breakdown of security at the Capitol on Jan. 6? If we’re going to investigate Jan. 6, why not ask those questions?” he said.
Pelosi has “already predetermined a narrative about Donald Trump, about Republicans,” Banks contended.
He noted that Pelosi is the person in charge of the Capitol Police.
“She doesn’t want us to ask these questions because at the end of the day, she is ultimately responsible for the breakdown of security at the Capitol that happened on Jan. 6,” he asserted.
The veto of McCarthy’s choices led Republicans to accuse Pelosi of exacerbating the political divisiveness in the country, and the House Freedom Caucus called on the minority leader to use a procedural tactic to remove Pelosi as speaker.
In the interview on ABC, Pelosi rejected the threat to her leadership, saying, “We get those every day of the week.
“Our confidence that we have in the work of our bipartisan committee that we have now — a select committee led by Chairman Bennie Thompson, bipartisan with the participation of a very courageous member of Congress, Congresswoman Liz Cheney — is high,” Pelosi said.
With Post Wires