The top Democrat on the powerful House Rules Committee is furious with Kevin McCarthy after the Republican Minority Leader on Tuesday pulled his support for a January 6 Commission Tuesday. McCarthy had initially supported one and even set demands on how it should be structured. Democrats honored McCarthy’s demands but he pulled the rug out from them anyway.
“I’m pissed to be honest with you,” Chairman Jim McGovern (D-MA) told reporters, after reading McCarthy’s statement, as Talking Points Memo reports.
“What’s frustrating to me is that this does not seem to be a disagreement over substance or policy,” Chairman McCarthy added. “I do think this is an issue of character and fitness to lead.”
“I assume what happened is that Trump got wind of what we were doing and called up the minority leader and said ‘I don’t like it,’” McGovern said with “disgust,” TPM reports, calling it “pathetic.”
Fox News notes McGovern said he was ‘stunned” and called McCarthy’s statement “alarming.”
“If there’s anybody in this chamber who doesn’t believe it’s important to get to the truth about what happened on the sixth, or who wants to make believe that what happened on the sixth didn’t happen on the sixth, like a typical tourist day on the Capitol, they are not fit to serve in this chamber,” McGovern said.
Fox News report he was “raising his voice,” and added: “It is pathetic.”
McGovern wasn’t done. On Twitter he blasted McCarthy even more.
“We gave him what he asked for. But now? He’s going back on his word. He cares more about worshiping Trump & spreading The Big Lie than upholding his oath.”
Some political experts are calling McCarthy’s move an “open-air cover up” and “a replay of the GOP attempt to scuttle the Russia investigation.”