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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has most of the 13-member panel that will investigate the January 6 insurrection. Pelosi announced this week that she has appointed another House Republican to fill in another spot for the committee, Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger.
Over the weekend, Pelosi announced that she has appointed Kinzinger to serve on the select committee, adding another Republican to the panel following her appointment of Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney. This leaves four spots left on the committee that will be filled in consultation with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who withdrew his five recommendations when Pelosi vetoed Jim Jordan and Jim Banks.
“Today, I am announcing the appointment of Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, an Air Force veteran, and Lieutenant Colonel in the Air National Guard, to serve on the Select Committee,” said Pelosi in her statement. “He brings great patriotism to the Committee’s mission: to find the facts and protect our Democracy.”
Kinzinger has become a vocal critic of former President Donald Trump following his impeachment, and along with Cheney, voted to impeach Trump during his historic second trial by the House. Kinzinger has also taken jabs at his Republican colleagues over their peddling of the now-former president’s false claims of election or voter fraud that led to the insurrection in the first place. Both Kinzinger and Cheney are the two House Republicans who voted in favor of the select committee as well.
With Kinzinger’s appointment to the panel, Republicans would find it hard to frame the committee as partisan even though their messaging makes it so. Pelosi said hours earlier that she had planned to ask Kinzinger to serve on the committee, which he later released a statement accepting the offer. The committee is set to have its first hearing for the investigation this week.
Despite backlash from rank-and-file Republicans, including McCarthy, who maintain loyalty to Trump, Pelosi has gained strong support from Democrats, including Cheney, over her vetoes of Jordan and Banks. Pelosi also told her lieutenants that she may now have the advantage ahead of the panel’s first hearing.
People familiar with the matter said that Pelosi has suggested that Trump will not have any defenders within the panel as it conducts its investigation into the insurrection.
