July 21, 2021
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) has chosen five Republican lawmakers to serve on the Democrat-led select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, ahead of the panel’s first hearing later this month, The Wall Street Journal reports.
McCarthy tapped Representative Jim Banks (R-Indiana), chair of the Republican Study Committee, a group of the most conservative House Republicans, to serve as the select committee’s top-ranking GOP member.
Among his other selections are the following:
- Moderate Representative Rodney Davis (R-Illinois), the top Republican on the Committee on House Administration;
- Representatives Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Kelly Armstrong (R-North Dakota), both of whom served on the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump ; and
- Representative Troy Nehls (R-Texas), a former sheriff and freshman lawmaker who helped barricade the House floor against rioters on January 6.
According to the Journal, the House voted largely along party lines late last month to establish the select committee to investigate the events of January 6, when Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol building and temporarily interrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral-college victory.
Senate Republicans blocked an effort earlier this year to set up a bipartisan, independent commission—saying Democrats would weaponize it against Republican candidates in 2022.
McCarthy said he deliberately chose a mix of members: Banks, Jordan, and Nehls voted to overturn Arizona and Pennsylvania’s electoral results on January 6, while Davis and Armstrong voted to certify Biden’s win in those states. None of them voted to impeach Trump.
“You’ve got a mix from the entire conference, right? So people who objected and who didn’t object” to the electoral-college results, McCarthy said. “The mission is to make the facts—to never put the Capitol Police, or this Capitol, in this position again.”
McCarthy, who met with Trump last week, added: “I didn’t talk to Donald Trump about this.”
Research contact: @WSJ
