- Pelosi rejected GOP Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks appointment to the House select committee.
- GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger was one of just two Republicans to vote in favor of creating the committee.
WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that she intends to appoint Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and possibly other GOP lawmakers to the select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
"That would be my plan," Pelosi, D-Calif., said on ABC's "This Week," when asked if she would appoint Kinzinger or other Republicans to the panel.
Pelosi's remarks come after she rejected two GOP lawmakers named to the committee by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, setting off a firestorm and prompting GOP leaders to yank their entire slate of picks for the panel.
Pelosi said two of McCarthy's choices – Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana – would have undermined the integrity of the committee's work because their prior statements of the Jan. 6 attack.
"There's no way I would tolerate their antics as we seek the truth," Pelosi said on Sunday in defending her decision to nix Jordan and Banks from the committee.
The House speaker said she had not yet spoken to Kinzinger about serving on the select committee but "he and other Republicans have expressed an interest" in participating.
Kinzinger and Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., were the only two House Republicans to vote in favor of creating the panel, which will investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and make recommendations about how to avoid another attack.
Pelosi has already named Cheney to the committee, along with seven Democrats.
Cheney and Kinzinger have both been sharply critical of McCarthy and other House Republicans' refusal to address the Jan. 6 attacks, in which supporters of former President Donald Trump tried to stop the certification of Joe Biden's 2020 election as president. McCarthy, R-Calif., and other Republicans seem particularly reluctant to probe Trump's role in fueling the riot as he spread false claims that the 2020 election was rigged against him.
"Maybe the Republicans can’t handle the truth, but we have a responsibility to seek it," Pelosi said on Sunday.
McCarthy named five Republicans to the committee last week: In addition to Banks and Jordan, he selected Reps. Rodney Davis of Illinois, Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota and Troy Nehls of Texas.
Pelosi said she would have accepted the latter three. But she quickly rejected Banks and Jordan, who both opposed certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election and have criticized the select committee's investigation.
Banks and Jordan have "made statements and ... (taken) actions that just made it ridiculous to put them on such a committee seeking the truth," Pelosi told reporters last week.
McCarthy called Pelosi's decision action "an egregious abuse of power," and he has threatened to launch a separate GOP-led probe.
“Unless Speaker Pelosi reverses course and seats all five Republican nominees, Republicans will not be party to their sham process and will instead pursue our own investigation of the facts," McCarthy said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon.
More:Pelosi rejects GOP picks Jordan, Banks on Jan. 6 committee; McCarthy threatens to pull out
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