Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel blasted the mainstream media for portraying censures of two Republican lawmakers as approval of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
McDaniel issued a statement late Tuesday, four days after the RNC voted to censure Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., for participating in the House probe of the Jan. 6 events.
"If corporate news media wants to know why Americans don't trust it anymore, they should look no further than the shameful, outrageous, and patently false coverage of the resolution adopted by the RNC to censure Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger," McDaniel said in her statement.
"Let me be abundantly clear: as Chairman of the RNC, I have repeatedly condemned the violence that occurred at the Capitol on January 6th and do so again today. On January 6, 2021, the members of the RNC released a statement that read, 'These violent scenes we have witnessed do not represent acts of patriotism, but an attack on our country and its founding principles.' I tweeted that the violence was 'shameful' and condemned it in the strongest possible terms."
McDaniel reminded people that the Jan. 6, 2021 events were "deeply personal to me and our team as the FBI found a bomb outside of RNC headquarters that afternoon."
"I will never forget what it felt like to know that my staff was in immediate danger," McDaniel said. "Violence has no place in our political discourse, period, and those who engaged in violence on January 6th and committed crimes should be held accountable with due process by the appropriate law enforcement authorities and prosecutors."
As far as McDaniel is concerned, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Jan. 6 select committee – comprised of Democrats and the two anti-Trump Republicans – is a partisan sham.
"The awful events of that day do not justify Cheney or Kinzinger enabling a partisan committee whose real purpose seems to be helping Democrats’ electoral prospects at the cost of potentially ruining innocent people’s lives," McDaniel said.
"From the outset, the committee has lacked the legitimacy of past independent, bipartisan efforts investigating events of national importance. For starters, Republican leadership was not allowed to freely appoint a single Republican to the committee. Instead, Cheney and Kinzinger were hand-picked by Nancy Pelosi."
McDaniel also pointed out:
- The panel is "investigating Republicans who had nothing to do with January 6 for the apparent offense of being Republican."
- The committee is "employing techniques more common in criminal cases than in congressional inquiries” – words from The New York Times.
- 90% of the panel's subpoenas have been delivered to people who weren't even at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
- The Senate already completed an investigation into Jan. 6, and there are multiple ongoing active law enforcement investigations into what happened that day.
McDaniel did not specifically address Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who criticized the RNC for its censuring Cheney and Kinzinger.
"I firmly believe we are the big tent party, and that disagreement amongst Republicans is welcome and can make us stronger,” she said in her statement. "But what Cheney and Kinzinger are engaged in goes much further than any policy disagreement.
"These two have permitted their party affiliation to be weaponized to allow the Democrats gross overreach and abuse of power. In short, they never should have agreed to be part of a committee where Republicans were denied representation."
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