Many Republicans Against McCarthy Seek to Overturn the 2020 Election

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WASHINGTON They helped lead efforts to keep former President Donald J. Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election. They refused to certify that President Biden was the rightful winner. They spread lies that helped ignite mobs of Trump supporters to attack the Capitol in Jan. 6, 2021.

On Friday, the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack, many of the same hardline lawmakers who served as top lieutenants to Mr. Trump during the build-up to the attack spent the day blocking Representative Kevin McCarthy of California’s bid to become speaker and extracting major concessions before their opposition softened enough to allow him to claim the speakership.

Although some received subpoenas in the investigations on January 6 and were later referred to the House Ethics Committee, their power showed that they were far from outcasts and paid little for their actions.

Among those leading both efforts to block Mr. McCarthy and the push to overturn the 2020 election are Representative Scott Perry, the leader of the far-right Freedom Caucus, and Representatives Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona. (On Friday, Mr. Gosar and Mr. Perry bowed behind Mr. McCarthy after he gave in to their demands to dilute the power of the position he was seeking and to give their faction more influence in the House.)

Other hard-right holdouts for several days refused to vote for Mr. McCarthy are Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Andy Harris of Maryland. All three met with Mr. Trump or White House officials as they discussed how to contest the election results, according to evidence gathered by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

The Election of a New Speaker of the House Representative Kevin McCarthy won the speakership after an upheaval within the Republican Party that resulted in a long string of unsuccessful votes.

(Mr. Harris reversed his vote to support Mr. McCarthy on Friday afternoon, while Ms. Boebert and Mr. Gaetz voted current.)

Democrats made sure to single out the group.

This January 6 anniversary should serve as a wake-up call to the GOP to reject the MAGA radicalism that continues to lead to GOP failures, wrote Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, on Twitter. But the pandemonium wrought by House Republicans this week is yet another example of how MAGA’s radicalism makes it impossible for them to govern.

No one in the hard-right group attended what was billed as a bipartisan ceremony on Capitol Hill to mark the anniversary. Only one Republican of any stripe appeared: Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, a former FBI agent who is co-chairman of the centrist Problem Solvers Caucus.

The ceremony opened with a moment of silence for House members on the steps of the Capitol to honor Capitol Police officers who died in the year after the attack.

We are standing here with our democracy intact because of those officials, said Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the top Democrat in the House, as tears welled up in the eyes of several House members.

Witnesses who testified before the House investigative committee, including police officers who defended the Capitol, were honored at the White House, including Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges of Washingtons Metropolitan Police Department, and Harry Dunn, Caroline Edwards, Aquilino Gonell, and Eugene Goodman of the US Capitol Police.

Mr. Perry, who was one of the main architects behind a plan to install Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official, as acting attorney general after he expressed sympathy for Mr. Trump of widespread voter fraud, said on Friday that he fought Nomination of Mr. McCarthy for speaker until he could extract concessions from him to give the House Freedom Caucus and rank-and-file Republicans more influence in the leadership.

This place is broken, said Mr. Perry. We will not move from that position until the change is made.

Mr. Biggs, who later also softened his opposition to Mr. McCarthy’s speakership bid, which is currently up for grabs, will involve a range of organizing efforts in 2020, including meetings aimed at drawing protesters to Washington on Jan. 6, according to the House Jan. 6 committees.

Mr. Gosar, who voted against Mr. McCarthy on many ballots but changed his vote to support her on Friday, spread many lies about the 2020 election and spoke at the Stop the Steal rally organized by Ali Alexander, a well-known organizer.

The House committee that investigated the January 6 attack referred Mr. Perry and Mr. Biggs to the Ethics Committee for refusing to comply with its subpoenas.

Not all Republicans involved in blocking Mr. McCarthy’s ascension were among those who voted against certifying Mr. Biden’s victory.

Representative Chip Roy of Texas began as an enthusiastic supporter of Mr. Trumps of a stolen election but grew increasingly alarmed about the push to annul the results and ultimately opposed Mr. Trumps that Congress overturned them in Jan. 6, 2021.

Mr. Roy, an early holdout against Mr. McCarthy, led the negotiations to try to strike a deal that would make Mr. McCarthy speaker in exchange for changes to House rules.

We believe there should be fundamental changes about and spending caps after December’s massively bloated omnibus spending bill, Mr. Roy said, referring to the $1.7 trillion government funding package passed by Congress last month. . And so we talked about those. We put a lot in that place.

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