Exclusive — House GOP Poll Shows January 6 Committee 'Partisan'

House GOP members were briefed on Wednesday at their annual monthly conference meeting on polling data that proves the majority of Americans view House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s January 6 Committee as a “partisan” sham, Breitbart News has learned exclusively.

“The data shows this is not working for the Democrats,” a senior House GOP aide present for the briefing told Breitbart News.

“We are unified and confident the American people know this is yet another partisan gimmick orchestrated by Nancy Pelosi to distract from the Democrats’ disastrous record on the issues voters actually care about: jobs, inflation, safety,” the senior GOP aide added.

The briefing on polling data comes at the House GOP conference’s monthly meeting of all House Republicans, most of whom attend—except Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and Liz Cheney (R-WY), whom sources familiar with the matter confirm to Breitbart News have not appeared at a GOP conference meeting since Cheney was replaced earlier this year in May by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-WY) as conference chair.

The polling, conducted by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) as part of its monthly battleground survey, found that 50 percent—a majority—of respondents view the January 6 Committee as “partisan and politically motivated.”

The exact question asked of respondents was as follows: “Do you believe the ongoing investigation into the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a select committee of the U.S. House of Representatives is…” and respondents were offered two different options as answers, either “fair and balanced” or “partisan and politically motivated.” Half of respondents, 50 percent, said “partisan and politically motivated” whereas only 38 percent said “fair and balanced.” Eleven percent said they did not know, and one percent refused to answer.

When a second question was asked further probing the matter, the results turned even worse for the Democrats. “Knowing the Congressional select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has 9 members, all of whom were chosen by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, do you believe that…” was the opening of the question before two options were offered as answers, either “the investigation will be fair and balanced” or “the investigation will be partisan and politically-motivated.”

On that second question, a clearer majority of 57 percent answered they believe the committee is partisan and politically motivated—whereas less respondents, just 35 percent, said they think the investigation is fair and balanced. Less, eight percent, also said they did not know, and one percent again refused to answer.

The history of the January 6 Committee’s partisanship is interesting, thanks exclusively to Pelosi’s decision to abuse the speakership with an unprecedented action of removing minority members from the committee. When the committee was originally formed, House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy appointed a group of GOP members to the committee—as is customary for any committee of Congress. Usually, the Speaker appoints members of the majority party and the minority leader appoints members of the minority party. In this case, however, after McCarthy introduced his selections—which included Republican Study Committee (RSC) chairman Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) and House Freedom Caucus founding chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)—Pelosi stripped those two members of their appointments and refused to allow Banks and Jordan to serve on the committee. In response to Pelosi’s action, which has no basis in history, McCarthy then removed the rest of the GOP members of the committee—making it a purely partisan sham.

What happened next is Pelosi asked Cheney (R-WY), the recently-deposed former House GOP conference chair, and Kinzinger to join the committee. In the history of the House of Representatives, no member has ever gotten their committee assignments from the leader of the other party—so this was particularly unprecedented. But Kinzinger’s and Cheney’s prior votes for impeachment of former President Donald Trump earlier this year preclude the idea they could be non-biased about this, or that their involvement in this committee somehow offers a veil of bipartisan or nonpartisan protection for the Democrats running it.

Nonetheless, Cheney— including most recently comments to the House Rules Committee in a video promoted by the January 6 Committee—has done her best to make the claim that the committee is somehow not “partisan.”

Cheney said in this video that after McCarthy’s decision to withdraw from the January 6 Committee—she conveniently leaves out of her revised history of events the fact that Pelosi axed two GOP members that McCarthy had appointed—that the January 6 Committee’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), “decided that this will be a non-partisan investigation.”

Clearly, though, the American public does not see it the way Cheney and her Democrat pals present it, based off the GOP polling that members were briefed on. What’s more, this poll shades a bit toward the Democrat side of things as sources familiar with its sample say it is a battleground district poll of several dozen congressional battleground districts with an approximately four-point Democrat respondent advantage—or a D-plus-4—so the broader American public is likely even more aligned in believing that the January 6 Committee is a “partisan” sham. The poll surveyed 1,000 likely voters from Nov. 6 to Nov. 10 across dozens of battleground districts in America, and has a margin of error of 3.1 percent.

The new polling data, and the fact that Americans view the Pelosi panel as partisan, has Republicans unified behind the decision from McCarthy to withdraw from the committee. “We are unified behind Kevin and the leadership team’s decision to withdraw from this sham partisan ‘committee’ after Nancy Pelosi rejected our picks and we know it was the right decision,” the senior GOP aide told Breitbart News.