House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is attempting to enforce unity in his caucus and not for the side of law and order and democracy. Punchbowl News is reporting that at a private meeting with freshman House Republicans, he promised to blackball any of them who took a seat on the new select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. They would not receive any committee assignments from Republican leadership, McCarthy told them.
Whether that would extend to stripping any committee assignments from Republicans who accept seats on that committee—the two most likely are Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming or Adam Kinzinger of Illinois—isn't clear, but that certainly is an implied threat. To which Kinzinger had a salty response:
“I do think the threat of removing committees is ironic, because you won't go after the space lasers and white supremacist people but those who tell the truth,” he added. That would be references to Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene with her Jewish space lasers causing wildfires and, well, any number of white supremacists serving in the House, from Steve Scalise to Paul Gosar.
Meanwhile, a group of nearly 40 Democratic members are demanding that McCarthy finally take "immediate action" to deal with Greene whose behavior, they say, is directly threatening them. "Rep. Greene's conduct does not comport with what we expect from a member of the House of Representatives," the letter reads. "Moreover, we are extremely concerned that her conduct is creating an unsafe work environment for members, and that her actions could lead to violence against members of Congress."
Arizona Rep. Gosar isn't directly going after Democratic colleagues like Greene, but he's out there recruiting white nationalists and Holocaust deniers into the party. He's going to be the featured speaker at a convention of the California College Republicans, a chartered organization of the California Republican Party. "Congressman Gosar is a leader of President Trump's original movement to put Americans and our country first—before other concerns. We fully support President Trump's America first message," Dylan Martin, communications director of the California College Republicans, told the LA Times. "Hosting a sitting Member of Congress is great. Happy that a sitting Member of Congress is willing to speak to our students."
McCarthy clearly isn't going to do a damned thing on any of this. Instead of reprimanding Gosar for having it out with segregationist and Holocaust-denying Nicholas Fuentes—for serving as the keynote speaker at a Fuentes event and being featured on a fundraiser invitation with him—McCarthy excused him. He met with Gosar Tuesday evening. Gosar told him that it was fake news and McCarthy blew the whole thing off. Gosar "says he doesn't have—that it's not real. That he doesn't have anything on his schedule," McCarthy told reporters. So that's that.
He's not going to do anything to protect his Democratic colleagues. But he has already exacted retribution on Liz Cheney, who he helped oust from her leadership post for criticizing Trump, for voting to impeach him.
Because this is the Republican Party now. It's Trump's party. It's QAnon. It's the KKK without the hoods.