House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., suggested Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., could lose her committee assignments since she accepted the appointment from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to a Democrat-controlled select committee formed to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol siege.
Cheney, who was recently ousted from her House Republican leadership role over critical comments she made about former president Donald Trump and his supporters, was one of two Republicans appointed to the committee.
“I’m not threatening anybody with committee assignments,” McCarthy said on Thursday. “But it was shocking to me that if a person is Republican, they get their committee assignments from the Republican conference. For somebody to accept committee assignments from Speaker Pelosi — that’s unprecedented.”
He added that Cheney hadn’t bothered discussing the committee appointment with Republican leadership first.
“It would seem to me, since I didn’t hear from her, maybe she’s closer to [Pelosi] than us. I don’t know,” he said.
He noted that when Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., left the Democratic Party in the last Congress and switched to the GOP, Democrats pulled him from his committee assignments.
“I don’t know in history where someone would go get their committee assignments from the speaker and expect them to have them from the conference as well,” he explained.
Pelosi’s committee allows her to appoint 13 members, with five of those being appointed after “consultation” with McCarthy.
Eight of those appointments, which include Cheney, have already been made.
“We are committed to doing something that honors the vision of our founders,” Pelosi claimed. “It’s going to be high-level and justify the support of the American people. It’s not political.”
In a statement, Cheney said she was “honored to have been named to serve” on the committee.
“Our oath to the Constitution, our commitment to the rule of law, and the preservation of the peaceful transfer of power must always be above partisan politics,” she said.
