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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he will not cooperate with a request from the House review panel investigating the January 6 riot, just hours after the committee questioned the California Republican to voluntarily provide details, including details about former President Donald Trump’s mental state during the attack and in the weeks following.
“As a representative and the minority party’s leader, it is with neither sorrow nor satisfaction that I have concluded not to participate in this select committee’s misuse of power, which stains this institution today and will tarnish it in the future,” McCarthy said in a statement Wednesday night.
The Republican leader alleged that the committee “is not conducting a credible inquiry,” citing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s disapproval of some of his nominees and that it “is not serving any legislative function.”
Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the committee’s vice chairwoman, did not rule out the idea of subpoenaing McCarthy in the future, saying late Wednesday: “We’re going to assess our options, but we will get to the truth.”
The committee’s request to McCarthy, revealed in a new letter issued Wednesday, signals a watershed moment in the continuing inquiry, as the panel is now requesting cooperation from the House’s top Republican.
“We also need to know how the President’s plans for January 6th came together, as well as all the other ways he sought to skew the election results,” committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, wrote. “For example, you apparently communicated to Mark Meadows and the former President in advance of January 6th that objections to the certification of electoral votes on January 6th were ‘doomed to fail.'”
McCarthy’s past comments during the unrest, including interviews in which he recounted his contacts with Trump as the violence developed, were cited in the letter.
