Kinzinger says he suspects some lawmakers knew what was going to happen on Jan. 6

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who voted to impeach former President Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, said he suspects that certain members of Congress knew what would happen that day and supported the attack. 

In an interview with The New York Times Magazine and its talk columnist David Marchese, Kinzinger was asked if he suspected that some members of Congress were aware of what would happen and supported it.

“I won’t name names, but yes, I do have that suspicion,” the Illinois congressman said. “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.”

Kinzinger mentioned freshman Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and the tweet she made on Jan. 6 in which she wrote, “Today is 1776,” as a possible indication that she may have been aware.

Today is 1776.

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) January 6, 2021

“I don’t know what that meant other than this is the time for revolution. Maybe it was a dumb tweet that she didn’t mean. Fine. I’ll give her that credit for now,” Kinzinger said. “But if you have members of Congress who were involved in nurturing an insurrection, heck yeah, we need to know.”

Marchese asked if Kinzinger ever spoke about policy with lawmakers such as Boebert or Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), whom he characterized as engaging in “performative politics.”

“No, not those. Marjorie Taylor 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. That’s not a serious legislator. She’s not on committees. She’s a freshman,” Kinzinger replied.