House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has issued a statement declaring that he will not talk to the House Select Committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“As a representative and the leader of the minority party, it is with neither regret nor satisfaction that I have concluded to not participate with this select committee’s abuse of power that stains this institution today and will harm it going forward,” the congressman declared in his statement.
The chair of the committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), issued a letter asking McCarthy to meet with the committee and provide information about his communications with President Donald Trump and others.
“This committee is not conducting a legitimate investigation as Speaker Pelosi took the unprecedented action of rejecting the Republican members I named to serve on the committee. It is not serving any legislative purpose. The committee’s only objective is to attempt to damage its political opponents – acting like the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee one day and the DOJ the next,” McCarthy declared in his statement.
Last year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) rejected two of the five lawmakers McCarthy wanted to place on the committee.
“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,” McCarthy had declared in a statement last year decrying Pelosi’s move.
The only two Republicans serving on the committee are Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who were both appointed by Pelosi to serve on the panel. Cheney and Kinzinger both voted in favor of impeaching Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.