Ted Cruz hounded over role in Jan. 6 by challenger seeking to boot him from Senate

Sen. Ted Cruz is getting put on the spot by Democratic challenger Colin Allred who accuses him of helping to foment the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The Democratic congressman won his party's nomination to unseat Cruz, and Allred intends to highlight the Texas Republican's role in Donald Trump's unconstitutional plot to remain in office despite his 2020 election loss, reported The New Republic.

"This is going to be an election about freedom," Allred told TNR's Greg Sargent. "Part of that is about protecting our democracy, and that our coalition includes Republicans who believe that we should accept election results and that we should, you know, not try to overthrow elections and we shouldn't be attacking police officers and storming the Capitol, which, of course, the former president is responsible for, so there's going to be no backing away from that."

Trump was indicted in August on four federal counts for his actions leading up to the violent attack by his supporters, hundreds of whom have been convicted or pleaded guilty, and Allred hopes the former president's trial in that case will shake loose evidence against Cruz and other GOP elected officials who he claims aided his plot.

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"It's also true that he didn't do it alone," Allred said. "Ted Cruz was one of the chief architects of his attempt to overthrow the last election. In fact, he was the objector to the results in Arizona, when we had to have one member of the House and one member of the Senate object at that time. He was the senator who objected. So we're going to prosecute that case and make sure folks know that."

Cruz advocated the creation of an electoral commission to ultimately deny the certification of Joe Biden's victory at the Jan. 6, 2021, joint session of Congress, according to a conversation recorded by former Fox News producer Abby Grossberg.

The senator told Grossberg and Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo that he wished courts had ruled in Trump's favor in his election challenges, but Cruz said he had organized 11 senators to object to electoral results and would join Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) in challenging the Arizona vote.

Cruz had also proposed delaying certification of the electoral college results to conduct a 10-day "audit" that could then have allowed Republican-led state legislatures to overturn the voting results.

Trump allies who posed as fake electors as part of this scheme have been charged in Georgia and Michigan, while others appear close to being charged in Arizona, and Trump attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis agreed to turn over more than 1,400 pages of documents, communications, photos and videos related to the fake electors scheme in Wisconsin as part of a lawsuit settlement.