Rep. Van Drew to Newsmax: Pelosi Shouldn't Shoot Down Committee Picks

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's additions to the bipartisan committee investigating the Jan. 6 incidents at the Capitol are "good choices" and Speaker Nancy Pelosi shouldn't "shoot anybody down," Rep. Jeff Van Drew said Tuesday on Newsmax.

"I trust leader Mccarthy that these are well-experienced individuals who have a good deal of knowledge, and I think we'll look at this from an objective viewpoint, but we'll also look at it and make sure that it isn't just another time that we want to literally try to hurt our former president or hurt those that are in office," the New Jersey Republican said on Newsmax's "National Report." "What this really should be about is finding out the true information and finding out what really did happen."

However, "nobody is talking about" what had happened during protests last summer, or where people came from to protest, said Van Drew.

"Who was paying them?" he said. "Where did they get their weapons? What gave them the initiative to go forward and do what they did. Those were horrible times and actually, the disaster and the destruction that was done there was brutal, so that should have been part of this entire commission."

But "unfortunately," the commission is only focused on going after "one group of people" to try to hurt them with the goal of having "impeachment number, what is it, three now?" said Van Drew.

The lawmaker added that he agrees with Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, one of the five who has been named to the committee, that it is "just another attempt at impeachment."

"They're going to run this out as close as they can to the election to try to make an issue out of it and blame folks on the other side of the aisle," he added.

Van Drew added that Republican candidates should focus their efforts on the 2022 midterm elections.

"What was going on in the cities was atrocious," he said. "Police officers were shot. People were hurt. Businesses were destroyed, literally, entire cities were virtually destroyed. We didn't obey the rule of law."

He also called on lawmakers to talk about other issues beyond the Capitol protests, including what "we're really going to do" for infrastructure, how to deal with the national debt, which is a real problem, even though people don't want to speak about it anymore."

Lawmakers should also focus efforts on the supply chain issues, and "the fact that the America that you see and I see, an America that should be number one, is falling fast, and that's not acceptable."

Van Drew is also leading fellow Republicans on the prosecution of an accused Iranian agent whose trial has been delayed several times since his arrest in January.

"We did write to the attorney general, and I have to say that there was some action taken, and we appreciate that because what was going on was really wrong," said Van Drew. "He was dealing with lobbyists dealing with government agents dealing with people at every level of government, and that's kind of frightening because we don't really know what their ultimate goal was."

Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi, an Iranian citizen arrested last year, had been charged earlier this year with acting as an unregistered foreign agent for the Iranian regime, reports The Washington Free Beacon. According to the charges against him, Afrasiabi allegedly spent more than 10 years "pitching himself" as an expert of Iran when he was a secret agent of the Iranian government.

His trial date has been delayed several times, leading Van Drew and Reps. Yvette Herrell of New Mexico and Rick Crawford of Arkansas to write a letter to the Department of Justice to warn against delaying the case.

Note: See Newsmax TV now carried in more than 100 million U.S. homes, on DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Network Ch. 216, Xfinity Ch. 1115, Spectrum, U-verse Ch. 1220, FiOS Ch. 615, Frontier Ch. 115, Optimum Ch. 102, Cox cable, Suddenlink Ch. 102, Mediacom Ch. 277, AT&T TV Ch 349, FUBO and major OTT platforms like Roku, YouTube, Xumo, Pluto and most smart TV’s including Samsung+, Sony, LG, Vizio and more – Find All Systems that Carry Newsmax – Click Here