McCarthy, McConnell snubbed by Capitol police and their families at medal ceremony

After being awarded the Congressional Gold Medal during a Tuesday ceremony at the U.S. Capitol for their heroism during the Jan. 6 riot staged by supporters of former President Donald Trump, police officers and their family members pointedly refused to shake hands with the two highest ranking Republican lawmakers, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., presided over the ceremony to bestow the highest honor given by Congress.

"Exactly 23 months ago, our nation suffered the most staggering assault on democracy since the Civil War," Pelosi said at the ceremony that was also attended by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. "January 6 was a day of horror and heartbreak. It is also a moment of extraordinary heroism. Staring down deadly violence and despicable bigotry, our law enforcement officers bravely stood in the breach, ensuring that democracy survived on that dark day."

The deaths of five police officers are blamed on the Jan. 6 attacks, two of those by suicide in the days that followed it. Four Trump supporters were also killed in the violence that unfolded that day.

In the wake of the attack on the Capitol, which sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to Joe Biden, both McConnell and McCarthy sharply criticized the former president for his role in seeking to overturn the 2020 election results that day. Yet neither man voted to impeach Trump, earning the derision of many Capitol Police officers and their families.

"They're just two-faced," Gladys Sicknick, the mother of fallen Capitol Police officer fallen officer Brian Sicknick said when asked by CNN why she didn't shake the hands of McConnell and McCarthy. She added that she was angered by the Republicans praising the officers in one moment only to travel to Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort to "kiss his ring" in the next.

McCarthy, who is attempting to succeed Pelosi as speaker now that Republicans have regained control of the House of Representatives, traveled to Trump's Florida home and country club on Jan. 28, despite Trump's unrelenting promotion of the false claim that he lost the 2020 election because of voter fraud.

The meeting angered Republicans who had voted to impeach Trump, including Rep. Liz Cheney.

"He's not just a former president. He provoked an attack on the Capitol, an attack on our democracy," Cheney told NBC News. "And so I can't understand why you would want to go rehabilitate him."

Cheney went on to serve as the vice chairman of the House Jan. 6 select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol.

McCarthy sought to appoint Republican lawmakers to the committee who are sympathetic to Trump, but Pelosi rejected two of his five nominations — Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana. McCarthy, Jordan and Banks were among the 139 Republicans in the House who voted to challenge the Electoral College results in Pennsylvania even after the pro-Trump mob had been cleared from the Capitol.

Last week, McCarthy indicated in a letter to House Jan. 6 committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., that House Republicans would launch a new investigation of the committee itself.

“You have spent a year and a half and millions of taxpayers’ dollars conducting this investigation. It is imperative that all information collected be preserved not just for institutional prerogatives but for transparency to the American people,” McCarthy wrote. “The American people have a right to know that the allegations you have made are supported by the facts and to be able to view the transcripts …”

Before Republicans retake control of the chamber, however, the Jan. 6 committee is planning to issue criminal referrals to the Department of Justice for "those focused on the main organizers and leaders of the attacks," a source told CNN.