GOP House leader Kevin "I think Putin pays Trump" McCarthy announced this morning he opposes the proposal for an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, which of course will hollow out support for the vote. And of course he is opposing it for highly principled reasons!

McCarthy wanted the new panel to expand beyond violence by Trump supporters and also investigate other groups, like antifa and Black Lives Matter.

Nancy Pelosi and the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee who drafted the proposal sensibly said no. (Because, you know, those groups had nothing to do with the insurrection except in the fever dreams of Trump, Qbots and friends.)

McCarthy says that given the “shortsighted scope that does not examine interrelated forms of political violence in America, I cannot support this legislation.”

Oh, noble Kevin!

It probably has something to do with the two very different versions he gave of his conversation with Trump that day. In the above video, he actually blamed Trump for the uprising! He's since thoroughly sanitized it to meet with the exacting standards of the Orange One, and he definitely doesn't want to testify about that conversation under oath.

UPDATE: