House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Sunday the select Jan. 6 House committee is going "beyond its legislative scope" and conducting a "criminal investigation" of their political foes.
In an interview on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," McCarthy declared "our role in the House is legislative."
"This committee is … beyond its legislative scope," he said. "There are separations of powers. The House does not have [the power of] criminal investigation … what they're doing in this committee is going after their political foes, their opponents."
According to McCarthy, the role of the committee looking into the attack on the Capitol in 2021 should be why it was "so ill-prepared that day" and what needs to be fixed to ensure it won't happen again.
"That's why I sent a letter to the committee itself questioning what's happening there especially with what the members of the committee have been saying," he said.
"Remember, you have [California Democratic Rep.] Adam Schiff that put an e-mail fund raising out on the idea of subpoenaing me before I even received the subpoena. So is [it] really a legitimate committee, or is this a political committee going after their opponents and trying to raise money?"
McCarthy said the answer comes when you "watch who they've gone after and why they've gone after."
"Where is the legislative purpose of this committee? Are they looking at why this Capitol was not secure?" he said. "Are they looking at how can this Capitol be better secure? In the Senate research … they found that the riot gear was locked in a bus far down from the Capitol, so the police officers didn't have the security they needed. The police officers didn't have the training that they needed. This is the role that this House should be doing to protect the House for the future."
McCarthy also said former aide to President Donald Trump Peter Navarro had the right to claim executive privilege in refusing to testify before the special committee.
"He has the right to ask that question, whether he has executive privilege," he said. "Because in the future, those private conversations …with the president, you want to be able to have the conversation to go back and forth, what is the best way forward? And he has a right to uphold that."
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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