She won’t let Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Jim Banks (R-IN) participate, and she shouldn’t.
GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy (R-TX) doesn’t like it. Most other Republicans don’t like it, either. You don’t expect them to.
“This is deadly serious,” Pelosi said. “This is about our Constitution.” (Read story here.) She has no obligation to let Republicans turn this or any other investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection into a carnival of barking dogs. (Read more here.) She has an obligation to the country to not let that happen.
Jordan and Banks voted against certifying the election. They’ve defended the insurrection. They would be provocateurs, not honest inquisitors. They would use positions on the panel to thwart, deflect, distract, and obstruct its business of constructing an accurate historical record of why and how this happened, and who’s responsible. McCarthy’s action of appointing them to the panel was an abuse of the privilege.
Yes, privilege. Any GOP members on this panel sit there as a matter of privilege, not right. Republicans prevented Congress from convening an independent, bipartisan January 6 commission because they wanted no investigation of the insurrection. They voted against the House inquiry, too, which is happening only because Democrats have the votes to impose it on them. Through these actions, they forfeited any right they could claim to participate; and will participate, if at all, as invitees.
Moreover, if they choose to participate as invitees, their participation must be strictly delimited to keep them from sabotaging the inquiry or perverting it into something it’s not intended to be. (What they really want to do is bury the Capitol riot and attack the overwhelmingly peaceful Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality against black people. Pelosi’s not having it, and this country shouldn’t either.)
The Republican Party tried to overthrow our democracy and install an unelected dictator in the office that President Biden won in a fair election. They’re now working to enact new voter suppression laws. Their followers have brandished guns in public buildings brandishing guns and threatened the lives of public officials and election workers. These people haven’t earned seats at the table.
Despite that, Pelosi is being generous. She’s offered Republicans 6 of the 13 seats, and let McCarthy fill 5 of them, subject to her final approval. He can claim these seats for his party by filling them with honest people. If he walks away instead, that’s his choice. Let him. That’s his problem, and no one else’s.