House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy came out Tuesday against the bipartisan deal struck last week on the scope of the Jan. 6 commission, criticizing the agreement as “shortsighted.”
The GOP leader slammed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for refusing to “negotiate in good faith,” even though the deal won the backing of a senior Republican lawmaker, New York Rep. John Katko.
McCarthy, a California Republican, reiterated his objection to the commission’s singular focus on the Jan. 6 riots, and insisted the probe should include the Black Lives Matter protests that swept the country last summer.
“Given the political misdirections that have marred this process, given the now duplicative and potentially counterproductive nature of this effort, and given the Speaker’s shortsighted scope that does not examine interrelated forms of political violence in America, I cannot support this legislation,” McCarthy said in a statement.
The agreement was brokered Friday by Katko and Mississippi Rep. Benny Thompson, respectively the top Republican and Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee.
Katko, who represents a swath of upstate that includes Syracuse, was among just 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 attack.
The commission, modeled after the congressional panel that probed the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in downtown Manhattan, will dig into the security failures that caused the riot, according to an outline provided by Katko and Thompson.
The commission will have 10 members, appointed evenly by Democrats and Republicans. It will have subpoena power and be tasked with producing a report on its findings by Dec. 31, along with recommendations for how to better secure the Capitol in the future.
Pelosi said Friday that the deal paves the way for the commission to be approved by the full House of Representatives as soon as this week.
The commission faces a tougher battle in the evenly-split Senate, where most legislation requires 60 votes.
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