“This is going to be an all-around tough day for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy – and to a large degree, it’s a self-inflicted predicament. The House’s Jan. 6 committee makes its debut this morning. For the first time across dozens of high-profile Trump-related oversight hearings, GOP leadership and allies will have no voice on the panel. McCarthy’s rather abrupt decision last week to pull his members from the Jan. 6 committee means that Dems – and their two GOP allies on this issue, Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) – will have free rein to set the narrative. (This is why several folks on McCarthy’s own leadership team thought that pulling out was a bad idea.)”
“Uniformed police officers who put their lives on the line to defend Congress on Jan. 6 will testify about the horrors they endured that day… Their testimony alone is a public relations disaster for Republicans. The GOP likes to boast that they “back the blue” and are the party of “law and order.” But in snuffing out the possibility of a nonpartisan commission to probe the Jan. 6 attacks, McCarthy effectively brushed aside pleas from law enforcement to authorize the investigation. Now, after pulling out from the select committee, Republicans (save for Cheney and Kinzinger) will be absent as the officers speak… McCarthy wants to focus attention on Speaker NANCY PELOSI’s unprecedented power move last week to block two Republican lawmakers from the Jan. 6 committee. House GOP leaders will have a press conference this morning before the hearing, no doubt looking to try and frame the day’s proceedings. But ask yourself this: Do you think McCarthy’s complaints about Pelosi will mollify Donald Trump when he turns on his TV and sees no Republicans on the dais defending him?” – Politico.