Republican quit most influential committee post after McCarthy refused to punish Mo Brooks: report

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had a Republican member resign a coveted seat on the most influential committee assignment in protest over his handling of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The detail came in a bombshell new report by Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin inThe New York Times.

The two reported on a Jan. 10, 2021 call when GOP Whip Steve Scalise and McCarthy discussed a push by some GOP lawmakers to strip Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) of his committee assignments for his role in inciting the insurrection.

"A push to punish Mr. Brooks came from within the Republican steering committee, an influential organizing panel that hands out committee seats to members of the party. One member of the committee, Representative Steve Womack, a retired National Guard colonel from Arkansas, was horrified by Mr. Brooks’s conduct and led the charge to punish him," The Times reported. "By Mr. Womack’s account, Mr. McCarthy asked to postpone dealing with Mr. Brooks until the next meeting of the steering committee. But when the body convened again later in January, Mr. McCarthy had already lost his appetite for taking on Mr. Brooks."

The newspaper reported Womack quit the steering committee in protest.

“I cannot tell you how angry I was,” he told the newspaper.

He said McCarthy had "demonstrated a lack of leadership."

Only months earlier, Womack had celebrated being re-elected to the House Republican Steering Committee.

“It’s an honor to have the continued support of my colleagues to serve on the House Republican Steering Committee," he said, adding that "our conference is united."

Read the full report.