Nancy Pelosi names Liz Cheney to January 6 Capitol riot committee

Most Republicans have opposed the panel, calling it a partisan exercise.

Nancy Pelosi after announcing her appointments to the select committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Picture: AFP

Democrat House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi selected Liz Cheney as one of her picks for the select committee looking into the January 6 Capitol riot, putting a leading Republican critic of former president Donald Trump on the panel.

Ms Pelosi said Democrat representative Bennie Thompson would chair the committee. He will be joined by Ms. Cheney as well as Democrats Zoe Lofgren, Adam Schiff, Pete Aguilar, Stephanie Murphy, Jamie Raskin and Elaine Luria,

“We’ll do our job, we’ll do it according to the oath we took as members of congress. But more importantly, we have to get to the bottom of finding out all the things that went wrong on January 6,” Mr Thompson said.

The bill establishing the committee gave Ms Pelosi eight slots, with an additional five for Republican minority leader Kevin McCarthy to select, subject to consultation with the speaker.

House GOP leadership has opposed the formation of the committee, calling it a political exercise and pointing to ongoing law-enforcement probes. On Friday AEST, Mr McCarthy declined to say whether or when he would appoint members, while also criticising Ms Cheney for accepting a committee assignment from the Democrat leader.

“It was shocking to me,” he said of Ms Cheney’s decision.

“If a person is a Republican, they get their committee assignments from the Republican conference. For somebody to accept committee assignments from Speaker Pelosi, that’s unprecedented.

It would seem to me, since I didn’t hear from her, maybe she’s closer to her than us. I don’t know.”

Punchbowl News reported that Mr McCarthy had told freshmen representatives they could expect to get their other committee assignments from Ms Pelosi if they choose to join the panel. Asked about the report, he said he wasn’t making a threat, but rather stating how committee assignments are made.

Ms Cheney, formerly a member of GOP leadership, was removed from her post in May over her continued criticism of Mr Trump, who has continued to make false claims about election fraud.

Standing with other members of the committee, Ms Cheney said she hadn’t been removed from her other committee assignments. She added: “My oath, my duty, all of our oaths and our duty is to the constitution and that will always be above politics.”

Mr Trump was impeached in January for inciting insurrection against the government on January 6, when his supporters stormed the Capitol trying to interrupt the ratification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College win. The Senate acquitted him in February.

Ms Cheney was one of just two Republicans — the other being Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — who voted with Democrats this week to establish the select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. Senate Republicans blocked an earlier effort to set up a bipartisan independent commission.

The select committee is structured similarly to the GOP-led select committee on the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi. It will have subpoena power to find out what led to the attack, as well as to examine the preparedness and response of Capitol Police and other law-enforcement agencies. Also within the panel’s scope will be government intelligence collection, analysis and the sharing of that information ahead of January 6.

The Wall Street Journal