House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced Wednesday he would refuse to cooperate with Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s witch hunt of political dissidents as it pretends to investigate the January 2021 Capitol riot.

“The committee is not conducting a legitimate investigation as Speaker Pelosi took the unprecedented action of rejecting the Republican members I named to serve on the committee,” McCarthy said. “It is not serving a legislative purpose. The committee’s only objective is to attempt to damage its political opponents – acting like the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee one day and the DOJ the next.”

In July, Pelosi took the self-admittedly “unprecedented” step to bar McCarthy’s appointments of Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Jim Banks, R-Indiana, to serve on the Select Committee, the latter of whom was to serve as ranking member. Instead, Pelosi replaced Banks and Jordan with NeverTrump crusaders Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger and Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney. The speaker’s deputies have continued to deny oversight requests to Republican lawmakers independently investigating the Jan. 6 security failures in violation of House rules requiring minority access.