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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's record related to the Jan. 6 attack is deeply unfortunate. For example, the California Republican famously agreed that Donald Trump bore responsibility for the insurrectionist riot, before the congressman ultimately decided that it'd be in his political interest to change his mind.
Similarly, McCarthy initially endorsed an official investigation into the assault on the Capitol before he changed his mind, helped derail the creation of an independent commission that his own point person had helped shape, and tried to sabotage a bipartisan congressional select committee. As of last week, the GOP leader even took steps to obstruct the federal investigation.
It's against this backdrop that a question looms: Whatever happened to the partisan Jan. 6 investigation that McCarthy said he was launching?
As regular readers may recall, it was in mid-July when the House minority leader declared that House Republicans would "pursue our own investigation of the facts." At a Capitol Hill press conference, McCarthy added, "We will make sure we get to the real answers."
Nearly two months later, The Daily Beast reported that the partisan alternative to the bipartisan select committee does not appear to exist.
[T]here's no sign that McCarthy and the House GOP will make good on that pledge. Several House Republican aides said they hadn't seen any indication that such a probe is imminent. A McCarthy spokesperson didn't answer repeated requests for comment.
As best as I can tell, the House GOP leader has made no public references to this investigation since he initially spoke about it nearly two months ago.
The Daily Beast's article added that some Republicans on Capitol Hill expect that McCarthy's pseudo probe "might be palmed off to a handful of lawmakers who could produce a report that narrowly focuses on Capitol security failures," though a pair of bipartisan Senate committees already did that.
Let's also not forget that Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who's said the Jan. 6 riot was largely a "peaceful protest," has also talked about a partisan probe. "I'm doing my own investigation to really accurately recreate what happened on January 6th," the Wisconsin senator said in May.
There's nothing to suggest this "investigation" is underway, either.
A cynic might wonder if some leading Republicans like to talk about a thorough examination of the insurrectionist attack, but when it comes to following through, the party's curiosity mysteriously evaporates.