Pelosi suggests Jan. 6 panel could investigate Jordan and Banks

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) indicated in an interview released on Monday that the two Republicans she rejected to serve on the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection could be scrutinized as part of its work. 

During an interview with The 19th News, Pelosi said that she vetoed Republican Reps. Jim Banks (Ind.) and Jim Jordan (Ohio) from serving on the committee because she thought they were “outrageous” and “not serious.” 

“I mean, they probably — ” Pelosi began, adding, “Well, we’ll see what the committee finds out about them, but they weren’t going to be on the committee.”

“There would be antics and clowns and not serious about this and still participants in the big lie,” Pelosi said, referring to former President Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen from him. “I didn’t really care if they had voted to accept the results of the election or not. All I wanted them to be is willing to seek the truth.”

Banks and Jordan are two of Trump’s most vocal supporters in Congress and have echoed the former president’s false claims of election fraud. Banks also recently organized a delegation of House Republicans to the U.S.-Mexico border with Trump.

Banks on Monday accused Pelosi of using the select committee to target her political opponents by suggesting he and Jordan could be investigated.

“That is an abuse of power and if she follows through she needs to be held accountable. It is banana republic style politics that doesn’t belong in America. If Democrats had integrity, they would condemn this behavior at home with the same enthusiasm with which they condemn it abroad,” Banks said in a statement. 

Once Pelosi vetoed Banks and Jordan, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) withdrew his three other picks to serve on the panel and announced that the GOP conference would boycott the proceedings altogether.

The two Republicans who are serving on the committee, Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), were both tapped by Pelosi. 

Cheney and Kinzinger were among the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and have been vocal critics of their party’s leadership for continuing to embrace the former president.

Pelosi praised Cheney as “just as courageous a person I’ve ever seen in the Congress of the United States” and Kinzinger as “similarly courageous to go down that path.” 

Cheney previously said that Jordan “may well be a material witness to events that led to” Jan. 6.

Jordan has confirmed that he spoke with Trump on Jan. 6, which could lead the select committee to ask him what he discussed with the former president that day. 

When asked in an interview with Spectrum News late last month if he had spoken with Trump on Jan. 6, Jordan replied, “Yeah I mean — I spoke with the president last week, I speak with the president all of the time. I spoke with him on Jan. 6. I mean, I talked with President Trump all the time and that’s … I don’t think that’s unusual. I would expect members of Congress to talk with the president of the United States when they’re trying to get done the things they told the voters in their district to do.” 

But Jordan didn’t specify whether he spoke with Trump before, during or after the Capitol was attacked by a mob of the former president’s supporters. 

“I spoke with him that day, after? I think after. I don’t know if I spoke with him in the morning or not. I just don’t know. … I don’t know when those conversations happened,” Jordan said.