March 10, 2021 01:15 PM UTC

Rep. Jayapal Requests Ethics Investigation of Boebert

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• by: Colorado Pols

This just in from CNN, after the local group Rural Colorado United launched a campaign this week calling for the House Committee on Ethics to investigate freshman Rep. Lauren Boebert’s actions surrounding the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory:

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington has sent letters to the House Committee on Ethics and the Office of Congressional Ethics requesting they launch investigations into three Republican lawmakers, over accusations of the trio “instigating and aiding” the deadly January 6 riot on the Capitol.

Jayapal asks the two groups to “thoroughly investigate” the activity of the three members of Congress — Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Mo Brooks of Alabama and Paul Gosar of Arizona — in the time leading up to the insurrection and refer all potential criminal wrongdoing to the Department of Justice.

For each member, Jayapal lists examples of their conduct in the weeks before January 6. Many of the examples have been frequently reported on, such as Boebert filming herself carrying a concealed firearm around the Capitol Grounds, the fiery speech Brooks gave at the Trump rally on the day of the insurrection and Gosar’s ties to extremist groups. The letter also makes note of Boebert’s tweets regarding House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s location on the day of the insurrection. [Pols emphasis]

The Hill’s Tal Alexrod:

In each of the letters, Jayapal listed rhetoric and actions she said contributed to fueling the mob, which ransacked the Capitol in a failed attempt to halt Congress’s certification of the Electoral College results showing Joe Biden defeating Donald Trump in the November presidential election.

Jayapal noted that Boebert released a video of her walking around federal buildings with a firearm and that the morning of the riot she tweeted that “today is 1776,” referencing the Revolutionary War.

“Five minutes after insurrectionists first breached the Capitol, Representative Boebert tweeted from inside the House chamber, ‘We were locked in the House Chambers’ at 2:17 p.m.,” the Washington Democrat wrote. “She then tweeted a minute later, ‘Speaker has been removed from the chambers.’ She was one of only two Members, the other being Representative Mo Brooks (AL-O5), who tweeted the location of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”

The only response that Rep. Lauren Boebert has ever offered to the allegation she helped incite violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th has been blanket denial that in no way addresses her actual words and actions. Along with Reps. Mo Brooks and Paul Gosar, Boebert stands out for having promoted the January 6th rally-turned-riot to her hundreds of thousands of social media followers in terms that very much suggest she supported an extra-constitutional resolution to the 2020 presidential elections.

And that’s before Boebert’s Tweets in the moments after the Capitol was breached by rioters regarding Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s location. There is somewhat more debate about this detail than the rest of Boebert’s unquestionably clear incitement in the weeks before the insurrection on January 6th–since it’s shocking to think that member of Congress would have knowingly tried to assist rioters rampaging through the Capitol.

On that one outrageously ill-advised Tweet, there is an issue of cluelessness or culpability that needs to be sorted out once and for all. As for the entirety of Boebert’s statements and actions leading up to the January 6th insurrection, however, there’s not really much to dispute.

It is only a question of accountability.