McCarthy says the GOP will run its own investigation into January 6 after Pelosi rejected 2 of his picks for a House committee

• McCarthy on Wednesday said the GOP will run its own investigation into January 6.
• This came after Pelosi rejected two of his picks for the House committee to investigate the insurrection.
• McCarthy said Pelosi is running a "sham process," though Republicans blocked a bipartisan commission.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday said House Republicans will conduct their own investigation into January 6 after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of his recommendations for the House select committee to investigation the Capitol insurrection.

In response to Pelosi's announcement that she would not accept GOP Reps. Jim Banks and Jim Jordan as members of the committee, McCarthy said none of the five Republicans he recommended would participate unless the House Speaker reversed course. Pelosi said she was willing to accept McCarthy's other three picks for the committee, and had requested the House GOP leader recommend alternatives to Banks and Jordan. McCarthy evidently rejected this approach.

"We will run our own investigation," McCarthy said during a news conference. It's unclear precisely what this will mean, though McCarthy emphasized that Republicans want to look into law enforcement failures on the day of the insurrection.

"Why was the Capitol so ill-prepared for that day ... and what have we done to make sure that never happens again?" McCarthy said.

-The Recount (@therecount) July 21, 2021

McCarthy blasted Pelosi for running what he decried as a "sham process," accusing the Speaker of making the House committee too partisan. But Republicans also blocked the formation of a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection, which is what led the Democratic-led House to vote in favor of forming the committee.

The House committee will still include one Republican selected by Pelosi earlier this month - Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Cheney was among the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump. She's faced backlash from fellow Republicans for refusing to embrace Trump's false claims about the 2020 election, and was ousted as GOP conference chair in May.

When asked about about the potential for Republicans to pull out entirely from the inquiry, Pelosi on Wednesday told reporters, "We have a bipartisan quorum. We can proceed."

Cheney on Wednesday said she agreed with Pelosi's decision and excoriated McCarthy for attempting to "prevent the American people from understanding what happened."

-Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) July 21, 2021

Pelosi said allowing Banks and Jordan on the committee would've jeopardized its "integrity." Like McCarthy, both lawmakers are close allies of Trump and objected to the certification of the 2020 election results. Earlier in the week, Banks and Jordan slammed the overall aims of the House committee to investigate January 6.

"You know what this is about. This is about going after President Trump. The Democrats don't want to talk about anything else," Jordan said during a CNN appearance.

"Make no mistake, Nancy Pelosi created this committee solely to malign conservatives and to justify the Left's authoritarian agenda," Banks said in a statement.

A comphrehensive investigation into January 6 could be uncomfortable for the GOP given the myriad ways in which many Republican lawmakers amplified Trump's lies surrounding the election, which catalyzed the fatal riot on January 6.