Louie Gohmert's involvement in Jan. 6 riot and his pressure campaign on Pence has gone largely overlooked so far

Rep. Louie Gohmert's role in the Jan. 6 insurrection has gone largely overlooked by the public and investigators.

The Texas Republican filed a lawsuit Dec. 27 against then-vice president Mike Pence, who he argued should exert unilateral control over the electoral certification, and then went onto right-wing media to seemingly encourage violence to contest Donald Trump's election loss after a district court rejected his challenge, reported Politico.

"In effect, the ruling would be that you’ve got to go to the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM,“ Gohmert said on Newsmax on Jan. 1, five days before the violent U.S. Capitol riot.

Pence allies have long suspected the twice-impeached one-term president was involved in Gohmert's pressure campaign, which was backed by lawyers associated with conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell, but it's unclear whether the House select committee is examining the Texas lawmaker's role in the insurrection, but at least one panelist agrees it played an important role in the violence on Jan. 6.

“It’s a significant detail in that it was part of a plan to isolate and coerce Pence,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD).

Gohmert hoped to force Pence to ignore a 130-year-old law governing the certification of presidential elections, but the former vice president ultimately decided he did not have that authority to throw out election results -- and Pence allies say Trump was furious that the Justice Department intervened to defend him as the suit was swiftly rejected by federal district and appellate courts in Texas.

The GOP lawmaker did not respond to two emails sent by Politico asking about the lawsuit.

Gohmert has previously denied reports that he was among “multiple members of Congress [who] were intimately involved in planning both (former President Donald) Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent.”