McCarthy bid to force Pelosi to take Jan. 6 committee picks fails

A privileged House resolution meant to demand Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) seat all five of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s selections to serve on the Jan. 6 select committee was tabled Monday in a near-party line vote.

The vote to set the resolution aside was 218-197, with two Republicans — committee members Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzginer of Illinois — joining the Democrats in voting to table.

McCarthy (R-Calif.) introduced the resolution after Pelosi blocked two Trump allies — Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — from the panel last week. The Speaker argued it would be “ridiculous” to seat the lawmakers following their statements criticizing the committee and describing it as a partisan plot by Democrats to attack the former president.

After Pelosi rejected Banks and Jordan, McCarthy announced he would pull all of his selections from the panel and Republicans would launch their own investigation of the deadly riot, during which a group of Trump supporters stormed the building in an attempt to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election results by Congress.

The measure condemned Pelosi for “refusing to seat all five Republican members to the Select Committee” and urged her to approve McCarthy’s five original picks. The three other GOP lawmakers chosen by the minority leader were Reps. Rodney Davis of Illinois, Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, and Troy Nehls of Texas.

The resolution slammed Pelosi’s actions as “unprecedented” and argued that her refusal to seat the members “directly harms the legitimacy, credibility, and integrity of the proceedings of the Select Committee.”

While Republicans have accused Pelosi of politicizing the investigation, Pelosi has asserted the select committee represents a bipartisan effort to investigate the siege, highlighting that Cheney, a former member of House GOP leadership who was ousted due to her criticisms of Trump, and Kinzinger accepted her invitation to participate in the probe.

The two GOP lawmakers have come under fire from a number of their Republican colleagues for accepting Pelosi’s invitation, with some calling for them to be removed from their standing committee positions.

However, multiple Republican lawmakers and senior staff have told The Post they do not believe they have the votes to remove either lawmaker from their committee assignments.