Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said “good riddance” to Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), after the former Speaker revealed his plan to retire from Congress at the end of the year.
“I say a good riddance to him,” Raskin said Wednesday in an interview with MSNBC Wednesday. “He did nothing for this country or his Constitution at its moment of crisis.”
McCarthy, who was ousted from his leadership role in October, announced that he will depart the House at the end of the year. Following the historic vote, speculation began on whether the California Republican would finish the term or run for reelection in 2024.
Raskin slammed McCarthy — who was House Minority Leader at the time — for his response to former President Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.
“He showed no backbone,” the Maryland Democrat said. “He showed no courage.”
Raskin indicated he disapproved of McCarthy’s suggestion to instead support an independent “9/11 style commission” over a Trump impeachment.
He said McCarthy proposed a commission “made up of five Republicans, five Democrats with equal subpoena power on both sides” and that Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who served as chairman of the House’s Jan. 6 select committee, agreed to it.
“Then when Trump told McCarthy ‘no, there will be no investigation of January 6,’ McCarthy withdrew his own proposal and opposed his own proposal and then tried to sabotage the House Select Committee which Nancy Pelosi set up in the absence of a bipartisan independent outside investigation,” Raskin, who served on the Jan. 6 panel and as a lead manager in the second Trump impeachment trial, argued.
He also criticized McCarthy for supporting the impeachment inquiry into President Biden and his family’s business dealings.
“Although he couldn’t bring himself to support the impeachment of Donald Trump for inciting a violent insurrection which almost got even Kevin McCarthy killed, he decided to support an impeachment investigation against Joe Biden,” the Maryland Democrat said. “For nothing without even identifying a potential crime.”
McCarthy’s departure from the Congress combined with last week’s expulsion of former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) further tightens the slim House GOP majority.
The former Speaker’s district, much of which is farmland from Fresno to Bakersfield, Calif., is likely to stay in Republican control.
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