Republicans want to punish Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for agreeing to serve ...

Calls to punish Republicans investigating the Capitol riots have grown after Rep. Adam Kinzinger accepted Nancy Pelosi's offer to serve on the Jan. 6 committee on Sunday.

He is the second Republican and outspoken Trump critic to take a seat on the committee at the behest of House Speaker Pelosi, after Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney joined the body earlier this month. 

Now, GOP members beyond the hard-right Freedom Caucus are calling for party leaders to remove the pair from other committees. 

'There's a lot,' one Republican told CNN about the push. 'Supporting Pelosi's unprecedented move to reject McCarthy's picks was a bridge too far.'   

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy last week pulled his five picks, which were given to Pelosi when she created the group. The move came after the speaker rejected two of McCarthy's picks – Representatives Jim Jordan and Jim Banks.

Pelosi told ABC News on Sunday morning the duo would 'jeopardize the integrity of the investigation.'

Kinzinger agreed that the panel needed a 'serious, clear-eyed non-partisan approach'.

'Today, I was asked by the Speaker to serve on the House Select Committee to Investigate January 6th and I humbly accepted,' the Illinois congressman wrote in a statement Sunday afternoon.

'I'm a Republican dedicated to conservative values,' he continued, 'but I swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution—and while this is not the position I expected to be in or sought out, when duty calls, I will always answer.'

Pelosi had said Sunday morning she was planning to tap Kinzinger as the second Republican on the select committee. Liz Cheney was part of the original eight members Pelosi selected for the panel earlier this month.

Kinzinger will join the other members at the committee's first hearing on Tuesday.

'I will work diligently to ensure we get to the truth and hold those responsible for the attack fully accountable,' he said in his Sunday statement.

Both Cheney and Kinzinger voted for Trump's impeachment following the January 6 riot.

Their choice to join the riot committee may cost them other seats, as McCarthy had previously warned freshman Republicans to look to Pelosi for future committee appointments if they accepted her invitation.

'Plenty of people wondering the same things,' another GOP member told CNN. 'If they are accepting appointments from Nancy Pelosi rather than the GOP, haven't they already effectively left? Perhaps they should ask Speaker Pelosi for committee assignments?' 

So far, there are no Trump supporters in the committee investigating the violent breach, which critics say was sparked by Trump's calls to 'stop the steal' and 'show strength' during a rally that same day.

Kinzinger, who became a vocal Trump critic despite voting with him 90 per cent of the time, was the first Republican House member to call for the then-president's removal from office by invoking the 25th Amendment. 

Now, McCarthy is saying that the panel is not bipartisan – and instead just made up of people hand-selected by Pelosi who all share her same view that Trump is to blame for the Capitol attack.

'Speaker Pelosi's rejection of the Republican nominees to serve on the committee and self-appointment of members who share her pre-conceived narrative will not yield a serious investigation,' McCarthy said in a Sunday statement after Kinzinger accepted a post on the panel.

He did not directly reference Kinzinger's willingness to accept the speaker's invitation.

'The Speaker has structured this select committee to satisfy her political objectives,' he added. 'She had months to work with Republicans on a reasonable and fair approach to get answers on the events and security failures surrounding January 6. Instead, she has played politics.'

The California Republican said the Senate has already conducted successful bipartisan investigations that 'should serve as a roadmap' for the January 6 select committee.

'Speaker Pelosi's departure from this serious-minded approach has destroyed the select committee's credibility,' he insisted.

It is not clear if Pelosi will tap any more people to serve on the committee, but she did say 'other Republicans' have expressed interest in joining the panel. 

When asked by ABC on Sunday morning, 'Will you be appointing more Republicans to the committee like Congressman Adam Kinzinger?', Pelosi responded: 'That would be my plan.'

ABC This Week host George Stephanopoulos pushed Pelosi on when she will make an announcement.

'Perhaps after I speak to Adam Kinzinger. But I'm not going to announce it right this minute,' she said just moments before approaching the Illinois Republican.

'You can say that that's the direction I would be going on,' she continued with a chuckle. 'He and other Republicans have expressed an interest to serve on the select committee.' 

Pelosi said she 'wanted to appoint three of the members that Leader McCarthy suggested, but he withdrew their names.'

'The two that I would not appoint are people who would jeopardize the integrity of the investigation. And there's no way I would tolerate their antics as we seek the truth,' she told ABC News on Sunday morning.

Pelosi, as House speaker, was able to veto two of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarhty's – Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana.

In response, Republicans warn there will be 'endless retaliation', according to a Sunday report, as the House becomes further divided.

'I didn't think things could get more partisan in the House than they already were,' a top Republican aide told the Washington Examiner. 'But Speaker Pelosi's decision to remove Republicans from the January 6th Committee just took things to an entirely new level.'

'When Republicans take back the House, expect endless retaliation,' the aide said.

The House currently sits at a 220-211 divide with Democrats holding the majority, but Republicans are putting all their efforts into flipping the body back to red in the 2022 midterms.

The Senate is split 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris holding the tie-breaking vote.

McCarthy picked five Republicans for Pelosi's committee earlier this month – Representatives Jordan, Banks, Troy Nehls of Texas, Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota and Rodney Davis of Illinois. 

Jordan, Banks and Nehls all voted against certifying the 2020 election for Joe Biden by citing fraud in certain states on January 6.

But Pelosi, last week, vetoed Banks and Jordan's appointment to the committee. She did not reject Nehls.

This caused McCarthy to pull all five of his picks.

'Unless Speaker Pelosi reverses course and seats all five Republican nominees, Republicans will not be party to their sham process and will instead pursue our own investigation of the facts,' McCarthy said at a press conference Wednesday.

'Pelosi has broken this institution,' he continued, while accusing the House speaker of an 'egregious abuse of power.'

Pelosi on Thursday defended her decision to reject Jordan and Banks, saying their 'antics' were in danger of getting in the way of finding the truth behind what happened on January 6.

She said both lawmakers had a history of making statements that would have made it impossible for them to display 'balanced judgment,' including blaming the Biden administration for events that unfolded before it had even formed.

'It is my responsibility as Speaker of the House, to make sure we get to the truth on this, and we will not let their antics stand in the way of that,' she said during her weekly press briefing.

The panel is due to hold its first hearing next week

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