Former Trump aides and allies ask Kevin McCarthy to remove Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from GOP conference

Fifty conservative figures considered to be close to Donald Trump have written to House of Representatives minority leader Kevin McCarthy asking for the removal of representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the House Republican Conference.

In the letter sent on Wednesday, the conservative leaders urged Mr McCarthy for an immediate vote “on stripping Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger from their membership in the GOP conference.”

The leaders said they should be removed “due to their egregious actions as part of the House of Representative’s January 6th Select Committee.”

The letter comes just a day after the House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to hold Mr Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress and refer him to the justice department for prosecution after his refusal to testify to the select committee investigating the 6 January Capitol riot.

Ms Cheney along with Mr Kinzinger represent the Republicans on the House committee investigating the insurrection.

As vice chair of the committee, Ms Cheney has been at the forefront of the committee’s proceedings recently as she read out a series of text messages from Republican lawmakers, Fox news anchors as well as the former president’s son Donald Trump Jr urging Mr Trump to tell the rioters to leave.

Mr Kinzinger was one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Mr Trump a second time in the wake of the 6 January insurrection.

In the letter, the conservative leaders said the committee had “no formal representation from Republicans” and that both Ms Cheney and Mr Kinzinger serve the committee at the request of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“As part of Pelosi’s team, Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger have deliberately sought to undermine the privacy and due process of their fellow Republicans, and those of private citizens, with improperly issued subpoenas and other investigatory tactics designed not to pursue any valid legislative end, but merely to exploit for the sake of political harassment and demagoguery,” the letter said.

The conservative leaders added that while the two Republicans’ inclusion in the committee was meant to give the investigation a bipartisan character, the two have been acting otherwise.

“The actions of Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger on behalf of House Democrats have given supposedly bipartisan justification to an overtly partisan political persecution that brings disrespect to our country’s rule of law, legal harassment to private citizens who have done nothing wrong, and which demeans the standing of the House.”

The letter added that while they can continue to serve as representatives in the House, they should no longer do so with the privileges granted to members of the House Republican Conference.

“They should no longer be given access to the benefits of a conference they actively seek to undermine,” the letter said.

Both Ms Cheney and Mr Kinzinger have been facing challenges from Mr Trump’s allies due to their presence on the committee.

Ms Cheney was removed, with Mr McCarthy’s support, as chair of the House Republican Conference in May because of her support for Mr Trump’s second impeachment and her refusal to stop blaming the former president for his alleged role in fomenting the 6 January insurrection.