Strident Trump critic Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., says he had a "suspicion" some members of Congress knew in advance about the Jan. 6 mayhem at the U.S. Capitol — and that they were good with it.
In an interview with the New York Times Magazine, Kinzinger was asked if he felt there were lawmakers who were aware beforehand about an attack on the U.S. Capitol that briefly halted the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential win.
"I won’t name names, but yes, I do have that suspicion," he replied.
"I will say, if you just looked at Twitter — the whole reason I brought my gun and kept my staff home and told my wife to stay in the apartment was looking at Twitter. I saw the threats."
But then he called out a specific post by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., who tweeted on Jan. 6: "Today is 1776."
"I don’t know what that meant other than this is the time for revolution," Kinzinger said.
"Maybe it was a dumb tweet that she didn’t mean. Fine. I’ll give her that credit for now," he continued. "But if you have members of Congress who were involved in nurturing an insurrection, heck yeah, we need to know."
In a follow-up question, Kinzinger was asked if he ever has policy discussions with Boebert or two other loyalists of former President Donald Trump — GOP Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
"No, not those," he said, before taking a stab at Greene.
"I give her credit for probably achieving what she intended to achieve, which is: ‘I don’t care about the damage I’m doing; I want to be famous and raise money.’ Congratulations," he said.
"That’s not a serious legislator. She’s not on committees. She’s a freshman. No offense to freshmen, but I have no legislative need to have conversations with her. I also see what she’s doing as dangerous to the country, and so I have no need to be her friend. I’m not going to go sit down in a corner and convince her of my side."
Kinzinger declared that he gets "along with the vast majority of the Republican conference."
"I think the vast majority agree with my position; they just aren’t speaking out," he said. "I don’t blame them all for that, but I wish more would."
He also warned Democrats not to get too smug about their majority on Capitol Hill, advising them to "not sit here and keep looking back and blaming."
"Because guess what, Democrats. Republicans will be in control sometime, maybe soon, and you and I would both much prefer saner Republicans than conspiracy-driven ones," he said.
"Everybody’s fear is the same: There will be no place for me in this country," he added. "If a liberal hears a conservative say, ‘No, we do want you here,’ and a conservative hears a liberal say, ‘You may be a crazy conservative, but I still want you here’ — that’s how you start to build trust."
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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