House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formally tapped Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — a rare Donald Trump antagonist in his party — to the select panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection as part of a boosted Republican presence.
Kinzinger joins Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in serving on the Democratic-led panel, which is designed to examine the circumstances surrounding the violent assault of Trump supporters on the Capitol earlier this year, including the actions of the former president.
Pelosi in a statement said Kinzinger “brings great patriotism to the Committee’s mission: to find the facts and protect our Democracy.”
The addition of Kinzinger looked increasingly likely in recent days, with Pelosi teasing the appointment Sunday morning on ABC’s "This Week," acknowledging that naming Kinzinger would be part of her “plan.”
Kinzinger in a statement described it as a duty to the country: “When duty calls, I will always answer.”
“I will work diligently to ensure we get to the truth and hold those responsible for the attack fully accountable,” reads Kinzinger’s appointment. “This moment requires a serious, clear-eyed, non-partisan approach. We are duty-bound to conduct a full investigation on the worst attack on the Capitol since 1814 and to make sure it can never happen again.”
The appointment followed Pelosi’s rejection of two of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s picks to serve on the panel: Reps. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). Both are aggressive defenders of the former president, and they were already gearing up to shift the focus onto Democrats, rather than Trump and their party. The GOP leader opted to pull all five of his picks and boycott the panel, which includes Cheney and seven Democrats picked by Pelosi, in response to her vetoes.
“I wanted to appoint three of the members that Leader McCarthy suggested, but he withdrew their names,” she said, referring to Reps. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) and Troy Nehls (R-Texas). “The two that I would not appoint are 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 previously said that the decision to block Jordan’s and Banks’ appointments was unrelated to their votes against certification of Trump's loss to President Joe Biden. Nehls also objected to certification, but was not rejected by the speaker.
POLITICO previously reported that Kinzinger has discussed his desire to serve on the committee, which so far counts Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney as its sole Republican member. Cheney was unseated as House Republicans' No. 3 leader by her colleagues in May after criticizing the former president and his false claims about election fraud.
With Kinzinger joining his friend Cheney on the select panel, Democrats will be able to tout the involvement of two traditional conservatives in a bipartisan inquiry. Nonetheless, the findings of the panel will likely be rejected by Trump's allies, who have blasted the panel as a partisan ploy designed to hurt him and the party ahead of the midterms next year.
And while House Republicans decry the select committee as stacked against them, citing the involvement of three former House Democratic impeachment managers and an uneven balance of seats, all but 35 of them rejected a bipartisan 9/11-style commission earlier this year after one of their own struck a deal with Democrats. A few GOP lawmakers have joined Democrats in reminding fellow Republicans of that reality after Pelosi's veto of Banks and Jordan sparked fury on their side of the aisle.
Banks, who would have been the panel's top Republican before Pelosi nixed him, charged Sunday that the speaker had "predetermined a narrative" for the investigation and sought to silence Republicans who planned to ask about security failures at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
"It's clear that Pelosi only wants members on this committee who will stick to her talking points and stick to her narrative," Banks said in an interview with "Fox News Sunday." "That's why she's picked the group that she's already picked, and anyone that she asks to be on this committee from this point moving forward will be stuck to her narrative, to her point of view. There won't be another side."
Republicans have vowed to spotlight what they claim are Pelosi-driven lapses in Capitol security that helped worsen the riot. The Capitol security officials who were in charge on Jan. 6 had both been hired by Republican leaders.
Pelosi on Sunday rejected the claim by some Republicans that her decision to veto some of the GOP appointees could sow more division in the country.
“Republicans will say what they will say,” she said. “Our select committee will seek the truth. It's our patriotic duty to do so. We do not come into our work worried about what the other side who has been afraid of this — maybe the Republicans can't handle the truth, but we have a responsibility to seek it, to find it in a way that retains the confidence of the American people.”
Democrats have indicated that Cheney will be able to hire her own staff for the investigation, though it's not clear how much leeway she'll have there. Former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.), a Cheney ally with experience investigating online extremism, is being eyed as her outside adviser for the inquiry.
Connor O'Brien contributed to this report.
Nancy Pelosi is reportedly considering adding additional ‘NeverTrump’ Republicans to the select committee she’s assembled to investigate the Capitol riot – with rabid anti-Trump Republican Adam Kinzinger apparently being an option.
“We’ll see,” she told reporters when asked if she’d be willing to add more Republicans to the committee to investigate the incident.
“It’s about seeking the truth and that’s what we owe the American people.”
The House Speaker is considering adding Kinzinger to the investigation, as well as former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA), a fellow Trump critic and a man who defended Rep. Liz Cheney when she was ousted from GOP leadership for her repeat attacks on the former President.
Cheney and Kinzinger were the only two Republicans who sided with Pelosi in voting to create the select committee to probe the January 6 Capitol protest.
So Pelosi only wants “Republicans” on the 1/6 committee who won’t challenge the Dem narrative.
Cheney and Kinzinger should just switch parties and be honest with voters. They’re Democrats.
— RBe (@RBPundit) July 22, 2021
With the crux of the January 6 select committee focusing on Donald Trump’s role in allegedly ‘inciting’ his supporters, Pelosi’s attempts to keep pro-Trump Republicans off the panel and install people she feels are acceptable is blatant partisanship.
“I’m incredibly worried that the ultimate end product will not be seen as objective,” Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI), who himself voted to impeach Trump, told Axios.
The assertion that Pelosi is open to adding anti-Trump Republicans to the committee comes just days after she rejected House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s recommendations of Representatives Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Jim Banks (R-IN) to serve.
Speaker Pelosi just admitted the obvious, that the January 6th Select Committee is nothing more than a partisan political charade. https://t.co/wGRO9fV2kt
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 21, 2021
Banks and Jordan objected to certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, a move viewed by Democrats as instigating the incident that took place on January 6.
Jordan, meanwhile, is a staunch and very vocal ally of former President Trump.
Pelosi’s effort to keep Trump supporters from the panel prompted House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy to respond by pulling every Republican pick from the committee.
Liz Cheney told @nicholaswu12 Rep. Kinzinger would be a “tremendous addition” to the 1/6 committee, though she said it is up to Pelosi.
And Cheney told me fmr @RepRiggleman “would be tremendous” as an outside aide to the probe, citing his work on online extremism.
— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) July 22, 2021
RELATED: Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger Only GOP To Vote For Committee To Investigate Capitol Riot
Kinzinger joined Cheney in bending the knee to Pelosi when voting in favor of the committee, saying the January protest at the Capitol was a “most egregious attack.”
“We need a full accounting of what happened on January 6, 2021—we need answers on who was involved in the insurrection and who played a role in orchestrating it,” he added.
“We need transparency and truth.”
The truth is, he wants neither. Nor does Pelosi.
What kind of transparency does Kinzinger think will come from a committee filled predominantly with people who despise President Trump?
And, if he were interested in ‘truth,’ Kinzinger would reject the notion of a panel that features Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a man who objected to the certification of electoral votes when Trump won the election – the very same action being investigated here.
Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin objected to Florida’s electoral votes in 2017. pic.twitter.com/FsLvJLvA8v
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) January 13, 2021
The fact of the matter is Pelosi is trying to serve as ringmaster for an anti-Trump circus and Kinzinger and Cheney are her top picks to serve as her little Ringling Brothers.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) slammed the political theater.
“I mean at this point the committee is not, I think, worthy of support or recognition from my perspective,” Roy said. “Pelosi has made very clear that this is a political politicized effort.”
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Greg Sargent/WaPo:
The huge, gaping hole in our media discussion of the GOP and Jan. 6
The bare-bones chronology is that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) nixed two of McCarthy’s choices — Reps. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — from serving on the committee. McCarthy then pulled his nominations of all other Republicans and declared none would serve.
The conventions of political reporting require that this is portrayed as a battle between equivalently motivated partisans: It’s a “partisan fight” or a “partisan brawl” or an escalation of “political tensions” or an “inability” to achieve a “bipartisan committee.”
Pelosi nixed Banks and Jordan because they have openly declared their hostility to the committee’s core investigative mission and have repeatedly raised doubts about the integrity of Donald Trump’s loss. They validated the lies that inspired the insurrection in the first place.
In short: Pelosi did not allow them to serve on the committee because their openly telegraphed goal was to sabotage the committee.
Jill Lawrence/USA Today:
In vetoing Jordan and Banks, Pelosi safeguards history, democracy and Capitol attack probe
We can only hope that truth, facts, personal testimonies and violent video will lift the scales from American eyes and put the nation on a better path.
Say what you will about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and there are multitudes with lots to say, she is a woman with a steel backbone and a laser focus on history – both the centuries past and the countless pages yet to be written.
Though it was shocking and apparently unprecedented that she rejected two of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s choices for the select committee that will be investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, it probably should not have been. Pelosi is not interested in a dog-and-pony show, in distractions that will give endless fodder to conservative media outlets and undercut the gravity of the task before this panel.
A speaker who has helmed two impeachments, painful procedures that exposed egregious offenses by President Donald Trump yet failed to remove him from office, knows exactly what would happen if she gave a platform to Republican Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks.
Plum Line/WaPo:
How Kevin McCarthy is boosting the integrity of the Jan. 6 investigation
We should be thankful that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) just pulled Republicans out of any involvement in the select committee to examine the Jan. 6 insurrection. In so doing, he ensured that the committee’s investigation will both have more integrity and be more likely to undertake a valuable accounting.
Which goes to a larger truth about this moment: Efforts at a real examination of arguably the worst outbreak of political violence in modern times — and efforts to protect our democracy more broadly — will not be bipartisan. These things will be done by Democrats alone.
Molly Jong-Fast/Daily beast:
The GOP Isn’t Sending Their Best, and Pelosi Isn’t Having It
The facts aren’t flattering to Republicans so their plan is to ignore the facts and throw shit at the wall and then try to blame Democrats for the stains and the stench.
McCarthy knew damn well what he was doing when he offered up two election deniers to sit on the committee in the first place. There’s no one in the world who considers jacketless Jim a serious appointment. He is a Trump sycophant who spends most of his time trying to say insane stuff so that he can get on Fox News.
With the rest of the party walking away, the only remaining Republican looks to be Liz Cheney, who Pelosi appointed after McCarthy kicked her out of the party’s leadership for calling an insurrection an insurrection and putting loyalty to country above loyalty to Trump.
White House officials debate masking push as covid infections spike
One idea batted around by some officials would be to ask all Americans to wear masks when vaccinated and unvaccinated people mix at public places or indoors, such as at malls or movie theaters, according to two people familiar with the conversations.
So far, leaders in the White House have been hesitant about any policies that would explicitly require Americans to show proof of their vaccination status, according to a person familiar with those talks. Depending on where discussions lead, that decision could ultimately fall to business owners who want to offer mask-free environments.
NOBODY WANTS TO BE A SERF ANYMORE
My good lords, I must bring to your attention a grave issue that requires our utmost concern. You see, my fellow land-owning gentry, it seems that the invention of mechanized industry, the rise of “capitalism,” and the impact of the recent plague have brought upon us a wave of moral degradation and irredeemable sloth — specifically, nobody wants to be a serf anymore.
This newfound modicum of control the peasant class has over their lives has brought us to a dark new reality in which the serfs have become so lazy that they’ll no longer toil without pay on land they do not own yet can never leave, and instead leach upon the system by searching out more equitable work.
Ed Yong/Atlantic:
America Is Getting Unvaccinated People All Wrong
They’re not all anti-vaxxers, and treating them as such is making things worse.
Rhea Boyd: It was a tele-townhall, and around 5,000 people participated. I would have imagined that people who stayed on would be unvaccinated, but the people who asked questions were a mix. I had one gentleman who was vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson and he asked, “Did I get a safe shot?” We affirmed for him that this far after his vaccination, he’s likely safe, but that opened my eyes. If you’ve heard about that serious side effect and are worried if you’re at risk, you’re probably not encouraging the people around you to be vaccinated.
Yong: That’s fascinating to me. There’s a tendency to assume that all vaccinated people are pro-vaccine and all unvaccinated people are anti-vaccine. But your experience suggests that there’s also vaccine hesitancy among vaccinated people.
Boyd: Yes, and we tend to hear similar questions among people who are unvaccinated. They may also have heard common threads of disinformation, but they’re still asking basic questions. The top one is around side effects, which are one of the main things we talk about when we give informed consent for any procedure. If people aren’t sure about that, it’s no wonder they’re still saying no.
A lot of vaccine information isn’t common knowledge. Not everyone has access to Google. This illustrates preexisting fault lines in our health-care system, where resources—including credible information—don’t get to everyone. The information gap is driving the vaccination gap. And language that blames “the unvaccinated” misses that critical point. Black folks are one of the least vaccinated groups, in part because they have the least access to preventive health-care services.
Nancy Pelosi has some unfinished business with Donald Trump.
The volatile former president and Pelosi foe is long gone from the White House but still haunts Capitol Hill. And as much as some in her party might want to move on from Trump, the speaker has made overseeing an investigation of the deadliest attack on the Capitol in two centuries into a core mission this year — putting her squarely in the path of the former president who Democrats say played a central role in the insurrection.
Her GOP opponents are warning that Pelosi’s close involvement in the select committee on Jan. 6 exposes its efforts to politicization and failure. But the California Democrat and her allies insist it’s the best way to prevent a repeat of the deadly day when thousands of rioters stormed the Capitol bent on overturning a democratic election and threatened to kill members of Congress.
“They wanted to kill her. They were hunting her,” Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) said. “I don’t think this is a political calculation at all. You’re talking about the greatest assault on our democracy in over 100 years.”
Pelosi huddled with the panel’s seven Democrats and sole GOP member, Rep. Liz Cheney, in her office on Thursday afternoon. A devout Catholic, she led the group in prayer before stressing the “solemnity” of their work ahead.
“The facts will take us where we go, not anything else,” Pelosi told the group, according to a source in the room.
Members of Pelosi’s inner circle insist that she doesn’t consider the select panel as legacy-defining work during what could be her final turn with the gavel. Instead, her confidants say, Pelosi feels like she was left with no choice after GOP leaders mobilized to block an independent probe and a separate Senate-led investigation was dismissed as too narrow, with virtually no discussion of Trump’s role.
But the most popular parlor game in Washington is guessing when Pelosi might finally exit the Hill after a storied two-decade tenure atop the Democratic caucus. And no matter when Pelosi and her two longtime lieutenants — Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn — step down, their responses to the deadly insurrection and its aftermath will shape their legacies.
“The answer of ‘we did no investigation’ is just not a legacy that anybody — forget about the speaker, but anybody, including Republicans — should be willing to live with,” said Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.). “It’s an overused word, but this is existential.”
Democrats close to Pelosi say although the speaker no longer engages in daily verbal combat with Trump, she still sees him and his loyal band of insurgent followers as a once-in-a-generation threat to American democracy.
And with Trump sidelined, Pelosi has been able to shift her focus away from countering his administration’s policies to shielding Congress from what she sees as his dangerous brand of politics, a clash with implications for the institution that will long survive her tenure.
“This is deadly serious,” Pelosi said Thursday, raising her voice and growing unusually animated as she explained her determination to move ahead with the select panel despite Republican protests. “This is about our Constitution. It’s about our country. It’s about an assault on the Capitol.”
Long before the riot at the Capitol, Pelosi has considered solemn duty to the institution as part of her leadership post. She has a long history working on national security, including years as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and played a pivotal role in establishing the independent commission to study the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Then came Jan. 6, when Pelosi and other party leaders were whisked from the floor just minutes before rioters broke into the House chamber. Back in her office, staffers cowered under tables as rioters angrily chanted Pelosi’s name outside a locked door.
“This is a serious moment,” said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who served with Pelosi during 9/11, the last event considered such a major threat to Congress' safety. “She has to get to the bottom of this so it’ll never happen again.”
Pelosi stunned much of Washington this week by ridding the Jan. 6 select panel of a pair of vociferous Trump allies — Reps. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — drawing fierce criticism from Republicans, who slammed it as the latest example of her overreach as speaker.
The move left Trump’s chief antagonist in his own party, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), as the sole GOP member of the investigation, although Pelosi hinted Thursday she might add more Republican representation.
Pelosi’s play this week infuriated McCarthy, the first House GOP leader during her nearly 20 years in power with whom she has almost zero relationship. Pelosi had a friendly rapport with former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and was cordial with former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
But when McCarthy comes up, she barely cares to hide the disdain in her voice.
“I’m not talking about him,” Pelosi told reporters when asked about McCarthy Thursday. “Let’s not waste each other’s time.”
The feeling appears to be mutual. When Pelosi called McCarthy to inform him of her decision to block Jordan and Banks from serving on the panel, she was met with “a wall of screaming,” according to a source familiar with the conversation.
A second source confirmed the call was tense but said both McCarthy and Pelosi had “raised voices.”
For both parties, this week was a reminder that Congress is still in the throes of a painful reckoning over Donald Trump’s hold on the GOP, as the former president’s influence only grows across the campus since his election loss. The resulting gulf between the two parties, and their leaders, has only expanded.
And it was yet another sign that Pelosi — who has already shepherded her party through two Trump impeachments — won't hesitate to wage brutal combat with her political opponents, despite her party’s slimmest margins in decades.
McCarthy and his GOP members generally see Pelosi’s decision to veto two of their members as undermining the seriousness of the select panel. They argue that the speaker’s unprecedented step to pluck Trump’s biggest defenders off the GOP roster shows that the investigation's mandate is chiefly to fight the former president.
“She was going to go forward no matter what,” said Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), who leads the GOP’s campaign arm. “I think that takes away any credibility from this partisan charade.”
And the sight of a mostly Democratic select committee had some of the most vulnerable members in Pelosi’s caucus whispering about the potential fallout ahead of a brutal midterm election.
But Democrats close to Pelosi dismissed those concerns, saying the 2022 election will be won or lost on the state of the economy and not anything else. Those Democrats say it was McCarthy’s decision to reject the Sept. 11-style probe that doomed cross-aisle cooperation from the start.
Several Democratic committees have already launched investigations into the Jan. 6 riots, hauling in witnesses such as the Capitol police watchdog and the FBI director. Those probes have already revealed glaring gaps in campus security, with big implications for Capitol law enforcement, perimeter fencing and management going forward.
But Pelosi and many Democrats insist a full investigation — a separate committee with its own resources — would uncover new details about exactly where order broke down and how Trump and his GOP allies fueled the violence at the Capitol. Democrats on the panel are already considering witnesses such as McCarthy himself.
“I think she wants to show a clear contrast between a serious leader, a serious party that is serious about governing, and this unseriousness on the other side,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.).
Ally Mutnick contributed.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has now admitted that it failed to investigate even the most "relevant" of the 4,500 tips it received during an investigation into sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, then a Supreme Court nominee, now a Supreme Court justice. That was in response to a two-year-old letter from Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Chris Coons. "We apologize for the extended delay in responding," says Assistant Director Jill C. Tyson.
Which is problem No. 1 for the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which Whitehouse and Coons are members: the FBI and Director Christopher Wray. Wray was the original recipient of the Aug. 19, 2019 letter from the senators. A letter which was ignored until June 30, 2021. Wray was the person ultimately responsible for how the FBI handled the background investigation with that "tip line," which ended up apparently just being a dumping ground. Whitehouse and Coons first pressed Wray on this in a July 2019 hearing.
"During the hearing, Wray echoed Republican claims that the FBI conducted the investigation 'by the book,' while asserting that supplemental background investigations are less rigorous than criminal and counterintelligence investigations," the senators say in a press release following the revelation that the FBI did nothing more than send the tips to Trump's henchmen.
So the senators fired off another letter Thursday. "The admissions in your letter corroborate and explain numerous credible accounts by individuals and firms that they had contacted the FBI with information 'highly relevant to … allegations' of sexual misconduct by Justice Kavanaugh, only to be ignored," the senators write in a sternly-worded letter. "If the FBI was not authorized to or did not follow up on any of the tips that it received from the tip line, it is difficult to understand the point of having a tip line at all." The letter demands more answers, potentially in pursuit of what will possibly be a future oversight investigation by the Judiciary Committee.
Because if it's not, what the hell is the point? There has to be accountability from Wray to explain why exactly the Trump White House called the shots on this. Honestly, Wray's job needs to be in jeopardy here. There's the very real possibility that the FBI director lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee in July 2019 when he told the senators that the investigation into allegations against Kavanaugh were "by the book." The committee needs to put all of the heat they can muster on him, and if necessary, on his boss—Attorney General Merrick Garland—until they get some goddamned answers. That goes for all the questions Whitehouse raised in a follow-up demand to Garland in March of this year.
In his follow up letter to Garland, Whitehouse wrote: "If standard procedures were violated, and the Bureau conducted a fake investigation rather than a sincere, thorough and professional one, that in my view merits congressional oversight to understand how, why, and at whose behest and with whose knowledge or connivance, this was done." This follow-up letter to Garland is apparently the impetus for the FBI to dust off its inbox to find and respond to the original inquiry from 2019, but it certainly doesn't answer all of their questions.
While they're at it, Senate Democrats need to start probing again how Kavanaugh managed to pay off hundreds of thousands in credit card debt between May 2017 and his nomination in July 2018, and on top of that pay $92,000 in country club fees, and pay the $10,500-a-year tuition for his two kids in private school, and make payments on the $815,000 mortgage he had for his $1.2+ million home. Because all of that is still very, very hinky.
That leads us to problem No. 2 for Senate Democrats and for President Joe Biden. There is a seated Supreme Court justice who has been credibly alleged to have committed assault, who has not been investigated, and whose finances are questionable, to say the least. First, this:
That's from a former senior aide to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, former Justice Department staff, and now executive director of Demand Justice. So yes, Congress can most definitely conduct the investigation where the FBI failed. The results of these investigations could lead, potentially, to impeachment of Kavanaugh, though that's a long shot and potentially a long way away.
Right now, Kavanaugh is just one of three Trump Supreme Court justices who are there in the most dubious of circumstances. Neil Gorsuch is in a seat stolen from President Barack Obama (hey, Merrick Garland!) by Mitch McConnell. Kavanaugh was not property vetted, no matter how you look at it. Amy Coney Barrett was rushed onto the court just days before the 2020 election—while people were casting their ballots—because Trump thought she would give him the majority that would overturn the election in case he lost. This dubious trio joins the inarguably corrupt Clarence Thomas, whose wife Ginni spent the whole of 2020 amplifying Trumpist conspiracy theories about Biden on social media.
They, with Alito, are the Supreme Court majority. The ones who all but ended voting rights and allowed for even more secrecy in dark money to flood our system. What they have planned for next session is even worse. The Supreme Court is packed with dangerous ideologues, and a few corrupt ones, too.
Now President Biden and Democrats have a chance to, well, unpack it. To dilute the Trump/RNC/Koch/Federalist Society’s malign influence and balance it out with four or six or however many additional justices. It is imperative. It is existential.
Here at Daily Kos, we all suffered through Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, recalling his indignant behavior while questioned, especially as juxtaposed with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s grace and clarity. We, too, likely recall that Donald Trump was relentless in pushing Kavanaugh's confirmation through. Recently, as Daily Kos covered, Michael Wolff revealed a conversation he supposedly had with Trump in his new book, Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency, in which Trump took credit for essentially “saving” Kavanaugh's life and expressed feeling disappointed in him in the end, saying he hasn’t had the “courage” to be a great justice.
This background lends an interesting light to a new report from The New York Times, in which fresh details on the FBI’s inquiry into Kavanaugh are causing serious—and legitimate—upset among some Senate Democrats. As covered by the Times, Jill Tyson, an assistant director at the FBI, wrote a letter to Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Chris Coons explaining that the most “relevant” of more than 4,000 tips the agency received while investigating Kavanaugh were actually passed on to White House lawyers in the Trump administration. It’s unclear how those tips were handled, and Senate Democrats want answers.
For background, the letter from Tyson was actually written in response to a letter sent by Whitehouse and Coons back in 2019, in which they wanted more clarity on how the supplemental background check into Kavanaugh actually went down. Tyson’s letter stressed that the agency did not conduct a criminal investigation, only a background check. To Democrats, the agency failed in its duty to fully investigate the allegations of sexual misconduct—from Ford as well as subsequent allegations from two women who accused him of sexual misconduct—during Kavanaugh’s confirmation process. Kavanaugh has denied all allegations.
On Wednesday, seven Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee replied to the letter asking for more information about how Trump’s White House handled the investigation and those thousand of tips. Democrats who signed on to the letter included Sens. Cory Booker, Dick Durbin, Richard Blumenthal, Patrick Leahy, Mazie Hirono, and, of course, Whitehouse and Coons.
Whitehouse spoke to the Times in an interview about the letter. Whitehouse told the Times Tyson’s response suggested the agency ran a “fake tip line” with responses never being “properly reviewed,” adding he assumed it was not even done in “good faith.”
In a letter the Democratic lawmakers sent on Wednesday, and which was released to the public on Thursday, they argued: “If the FBI was not authorized to or did not follow up on any of the tips that it received from the tip line, it is difficult to understand the point of having a tip line at all.”
As we know, neither Ford nor Kavanaugh were interviewed as part of the investigation. According to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the FBI ultimately interviewed just 10 people before closing its investigation. Democrats have long suggested the investigation into Kavanaugh was incomplete and politically contained.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected the recommendations of Representatives Jim Jordan and Jim Banks to serve on the select committee investigating the January 6 riot at the Capitol, prompting House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy to pull every Republican pick from the committee.
McCarthy even threatened to hold his own investigation of the events if Pelosi didn’t reverse course.
Earlier this week, McCarthy announced that he had chosen five Republican Representatives to serve on the committee – Jordan (OH), Banks (IN), Rodney Davis (IL), Kelly Armstrong (AL), and Troy Nehls (TX).
Banks, who along with Jordan and Nehls objected to certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, had been chosen to serve as the ranking member.
Jordan is a staunch and very vocal ally of former President Trump.
Pelosi (D-CA) decided she couldn’t have individuals with opposing viewpoints on the committee, rejecting Banks and Jordan.
Speaker Pelosi just admitted the obvious, that the January 6th Select Committee is nothing more than a partisan political charade. https://t.co/wGRO9fV2kt
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 21, 2021
RELATED: McCarthy Picks Jim Jordan, Other Trump Allies For Pelosi’s January 6 Select Committee
Nancy Pelosi’s decision to reject the opposition party’s selections to serve on a select committee is probably expected by most of our readers.
“With respect for the integrity of the investigation, with an insistence on the truth and with concern about statements made and actions taken by these members, I must reject the recommendations of Representatives Banks and Jordan,” she announced.
The move prompted McCarthy to hold a press conference noting that Banks and Jordan currently serve on other standing committees and accusing Pelosi of a power grab.
“Speaker Nancy Pelosi has taken the unprecedented step of denying the minority party’s picks for the Select Committee on January 6,” McCarthy said in a statement.
“This represents an egregious abuse of power and will irreparably damage this institution,” he continued.
.@GOPLeader rips Speaker Pelosi for denying Republican members to the Jan 6 select committee:
“It’s an egregious abuse of power. Pelosi has broken this institution… This panel has lost all legitimacy and credibility.” pic.twitter.com/8ET1wMtVS0
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 21, 2021
“Denying the voices of members who have served in the military and law enforcement, as well as leaders of standing committees, has made it undeniable that this panel has lost all legitimacy and credibility and shows the Speaker is more interested in playing politics than seeking the truth,” McCarthy said.
He added that if Pelosi doesn’t reverse course, he would be pulling every Republican off the committee and pursuing “our own investigation of the facts.”
Rep. @Jim_Jordan: “This has always been about politics, and today’s actions by the Speaker just confirm that.” https://t.co/LWlS4WtEzL pic.twitter.com/p0QhlQTlPO
— The Hill (@thehill) July 21, 2021
RELATED: DEA Agent Arrested For Bringing Gun, Badge To Capitol Protest, Claimed He Was There To Help FBI
Anti-Trump Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), the only Republican picked by Pelosi to serve on the committee due to her anti-Trump history, naturally sang the praises of the House Speaker for her naked partisanship.
“At every opportunity, the minority leader has attempted to prevent the American people from understanding what happened, to block this investigation,” she said.
Cheney, who had her leadership role stripped due to an inability to focus on representing the Republican Party as opposed to her hatred of the former President, suggested McCarthy should no longer be the House GOP leader.
“Any person who would be third in line to the presidency must demonstrate a commitment to the Constitution and a commitment to the rule of law, and Minority Leader McCarthy has not done that,” she railed.
“I agree with what the Speaker has done,” says Rep. @Liz_Cheney on Speaker Pelosi’s decision to not seat Reps. @Jim_Jordan and @RepJimBanks on the Jan 6 Select Committee pic.twitter.com/M25HqtNeAc
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 21, 2021
Had Cheney opted for an intelligent response, she would have at least tangentially criticized Pelosi for the move and promoted the charade that the two were interested in a fair and balanced select committee.
BREAKING: @RepJimBanks responds to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “She knows that we were prepared to fight, to get to the truth… but she doesn’t want to go down that path.”
“It just goes to show this is entirely a political exercise on her part.” pic.twitter.com/EHt5uaj6bq
— Newsmax (@newsmax) July 21, 2021
Even before Pelosi’s decision, Banks and Jordan were hammering away at the select committee’s seriousness, or lack thereof.
Jordan referred to it as “impeachment, round three,” while Banks accused Pelosi of creating the committee “solely to malign conservatives and to justify the Left’s authoritarian agenda.”
It should be noted that Pelosi’s decision seems to hinge in part on the fact that Jordan and Banks objected to certifying the election results, something Democrats have insisted contributed to the protest at the Capitol.
In fact, Cheney alluded to this in her response suggesting Jordan “may be a material witness to events that lead to that day.”
Somebody may want to ask Cheney and Pelosi about the presence of Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) on the select committee in that case.
Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin objected to Florida’s electoral votes in 2017. pic.twitter.com/FsLvJLvA8v
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) January 13, 2021
Democrats, including Raskin, tried objecting to the certification of electoral votes for Donald Trump in 2017 on 11 separate occasions.
Using the Democrat Party’s own standard today, one could argue that the constant insistence that Trump didn’t really win the election in 2016 led to an incitement of violence on his inauguration day.
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