Pelosi appoints Republican Liz Cheney to newly approved Jan. 6 committee

The morning after the House of Representatives voted to create a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) appointed Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) as the lone Republican on the committee.

House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) will chair the committee, and the six other appointees include:

• Pete Aguilar (D-CA)
• Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)
• Elaine Luria (D-VA)
• Stephanie Murphy (D-FL)
• Jamie Raskin (D-MD)
• Adam Schiff (D-CA)

Cheney’s appointment comes after Punchbowl News reported House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) threatened to strip freshmen Republicans of their committee assignments if they accepted an appointment to the committee from Pelosi. House Republicans voted to remove Cheney from a leadership post back in May,

In response to a question about McCarthy’s threats, Pelosi said, “I’m not responding to him. We’re making our presentation here. Go ask him about what he says, OK?”

Shortly after Pelosi’s announcement, McCarthy fielded a related question during his weekly news conference.

“I’m not making any threats about committee assignments, but you know how Congress works,” McCarthy said. “You get elected by your district, and you get your committees from your conference. When Jeff van Drew left the [Democratic] Party and became a Republican, he lost his committee assignments from the Speaker and got them from the Republican conference.”

“I don’t know in history where someone would go get their committee assignments from the Speaker and expect them to have them from the Conference as well,” McCarthy added.

In a follow-up question, McCarthy told reporters, “It was shocking to me that 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.”

Cheney currently serves on the House Armed Services Committee.