The House Freedom Caucus sent a letter to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Friday requesting that he attempt to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) from her position as Speaker after a week of drama on Capitol Hill.
The move is the most recent development in a series of actions taken by members of both parties over the past week with regard to the formation of the January 6 Select Committee.
The caucus wrote to McCarthy, saying that they “respectfully request that you pursue the authorization of the House Republican Conference, pursuant to Conference rules, to file and bring up a privileged motion by July 31, 2021, to vacate the chair and end Nancy Pelosi’s authoritarian reign as Speaker of the House.”
The letter explained, “Rule IX, Clause 3 of the Rules of the House of Representatives for the One Hundred Seventeenth Congress requires that ‘A resolution causing a vacancy in the Office of Speaker shall not be privileged except if offered by direction of a party caucus or conference’.”
The group argued that “Pelosi’s tenure is destroying the House of Representatives and our ability to faithfully represent the people we are here to serve.” They also pointed to measures taken by Pelosi like “allowing proxy voting and insulting security measures like metal detectors for Members coming to the floor to vote.”
The group brought up Pelosi’s actions earlier in the week, noting that her “refusal to seat Rep. Jim Jordan and Rep. Jim Banks on the Select Committee to Investigate January 6 is intolerable.”
As The Daily Wire reported on Thursday, Pelosi said her January 6 Select Committee will proceed despite what she labeled as Republican “antics” — a reference to McCarthy’s decision to pull GOP participation from the committee after she refused to seat two of his five picks.
After Pelosi’s decision to block two of McCarthy’s choices, “McCarthy simply yanked Republican participation, imperiling the legitimacy of Pelosi’s eventual findings, casting the Democrats Select Committee as a ‘sham process,’” The Daily Wire reported.
“This represents an egregious abuse of power and will irreparably damage this institution,” McCarthy said in a statement. “Denying the voices of members who have served in the military and law enforcement, as well as leaders of standing committees, has made it undeniable that this panel has lost all legitimacy and credibility, and shows the Speaker is more interested in playing politics than seeking the truth.”
“Unless Speaker Pelosi reverses course and seats all five Republican nominees, Republicans will not be party to their sham process and will instead pursue our own investigation of the facts,” McCarthy told reporters.
“Of the three [McCarthy picks] that I appointed, one of them voted against the ratification and the other two voted for it. Having said that, though, the other two [Jordan and Banks] made statements and took actions that just made it ridiculous to put them on such a committee seeking the truth,” Pelosi said, per Axios.
“When statements are ridiculous and fall into the realm of, ‘You must be kidding,’ there’s no way that they’re going to be on the committee,” Pelosi added.
“I’m not talking about him,” Pelosi said of McCarthy on Thursday. “Let’s not waste each other’s time.”