House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy gave a master class in Republican cowardice, complicity and cover-up of the January 6 insurrection he obviously doesn’t want investigated.

Appearing on Fox News Sunday yesterday, host Chris Wallace asked about the February bombshell from Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA), that McCarthy told her that when he phoned Trump during the January 6th insurrection, asking him to to call off the attack on the Capitol, Trump said, "Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are."

McCarthy has had months to say that did not happen. But when asked if Herrera Beutler’s account was true, McCarthy was too cowardly to answer. Instead, he danced around the question and covered up for Trump. It only made Herrera Beutler's account look more accurate.

WALLACE: Is she right? Is that what President Trump said to you?

MCCARTHY: What I talked to President Trump about – I was the first person to contact him when the riots were going on. He didn’t see it.

What he ended the call was saying, telling me he’ll put something out to make sure to stop this and that’s what he did. He put a video out later.

Wallace pressed.

WALLACE: Quite a lot later. And it was a pretty weak video.

But I’m asking you specifically: Did he say to you, “I guess some people are more concerned about the election than you are?”

MCCARTHY: No, listen, my conversations with the president are my conversations with the president. I engaged in the idea of making sure we could stop what was going on inside the Capitol at that moment in time. The president said he would help.

Now, it’s true McCarthy said “No,” at the beginning of his answer. But it seemed more of a “No, I’m not going to tell you” than a “No, Trump didn’t say that.”

After all, if Herrera Beutler misunderstood or was lying, McCarthy would have had every reason to issue a full-throated denial. I think it’s pretty clear why he didn’t: He’d rather suck up to the man who didn’t care about endangering McCarthy's own life, many other American lives, the seat of American democracy or American democracy, itself, than risk his displeasure.

I give Wallace credit for his challenges but he ultimately let McCarthy off the hook by not pointing out that Herrera Beutler has been emphatic about her recollection and further pressed McCarthy to answer, yes or no, had she correctly relayed what happened? It was not a conversation about, say, whipping a piece of legislation, but important information about Trump’s behavior during an insurrection that the public has a right to know.

In any event, McCarthy’s cowardly, complicit, cover-up was made even more obvious when Wallace asked McCarthy about not taking yes for an answer on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s concessions for a committee to investigate the January 6th events.

Once again, McCarthy danced around the subject, refusing to outline a path forward, and deflected to making a false equivalence to left-wing violence. In other words, he acted like someone more interested in distracting from the January 6 insurrection than in focusing on investigating it.

WALLACE: [Pelosi] has caved on several issues involving the January 6 special committee. She now says yes, equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats; yes, bipartisan support for any subpoena that is issued. Are you willing to take yes for an answer and sign up for the January 6th special committee.

MCCARTHY: You say she has. I’ve never had one conversation about this. On January 13th, I proposed the 911 commission with what happened on January 6. To have equal number of Republicans and Democrats, same subpoena, don’t start with any findings or ideas, let the facts take you to where you are.

Since Good Friday, we just had Officer Evans killed in the Capitol. For the last year, we’ve had political violence across this country and in this city. I think we should look at all of that.

But she’s never once had a conversation with myself or [Senate Minority] Leader Mitch McConnell.

WALLACE: Let me just finish up on this question of the scope because when the Benghazi committee to investigate the murder of those four American diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, back in 2012 happened, the Republicans set it up, John Boehner, and it was completely confined to discussing what happened in the Benghazi murder. It wasn’t about problems in the Middle East.

Why not confine this committee – it’s a big deal, what happened on January 6, when the – you had this insurrection at the Capitol.

MCCARTHY: You had an insurrection at the Capitol, you’ve had political violence for the last year in this building. You had a Good Friday – an officer killed for  political belief right on that Capitol as well.

If you’re now going to put a commission together, why wouldn’t you look at all the problems?

WALLACE: So you wouldn’t want to agree to a commission unless it has that broader scope?

MCCARTHY: I’m the one who asked for a commission. It’s Speaker Pelosi who’s been trying to make it partisan.

WALLACE: But I’m asking, would you accept a commission that’s focused on the riot at the Capitol?

MCCARTHY: This is too important to negotiate in the press and not sit down with the other leaders and walk through to solve this problem for the American public.

Or to put it another way, McCarthy intends to do everything to protect the people responsible for an insurrection that might have killed him.

You can watch this sniveling coward below, from the April 25, 2021 Fox News Sunday.