Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) called out Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who is among the Republican lawmakers running for president. According to Kinzinger, Scott "knows better" than to excuse away Donald Trump's culpability with the Jan. 6 attack.
"I hold the folks who broke into the Capitol with ill will in their hearts destroying property, responsible for their actions," Scott told WMUR in "conversation with candidates" in New Hampshire. "I don't hold the former president, who didn't show up at the Capitol, as responsible."
Kinzinger called it "disappointing," similar to what he's seen from former Vice President Mike Pence.
"I'm friends with Tim. I know he knows better than that," said Kinzinger. "I get the strategy. We don't want to infuriate the base on this. But the base needs leadership. They need leaders to tell them the truth. And this idea that the only people that can be held accountable are those that were actually in the Capitol, quite honestly, it's very unfair because a lot of these men and women in the Capitol who have been charged have said in public court proceedings that, in fact, they understood it to be Donald Trump's wishes that they did what they did."
So, he explained, he agreed that the attackers should be held accountable for their own actions, but letting Trump get away scot-free isn't right.
"You are exempting the leader simply because the leader himself didn't cross the redline physically," Kinzinger continued. "All we have to do is look at what led up to January 6th, and that illegality even before January 6th. Look at the tweets and the words on Jan. 6th, and even after! Celebrating people as martyrs that have been in jail. The day of saying, you know, 'Mike Pence disappointed us' or 'Mike Pence betrayed us,' at the height of the violence, not when this was over in retrospect, at the height of the violence. At the height of this mob. Look, if Donald Trump can't be held accountable for this, if he can't be held accountable, no leader of any group should be held accountable for anything unless they physically did some kind of a violent act. And thankfully, our justice system doesn't fully work that way."
Acosta wondered if the purpose of the move was as someone who might step in if Donald Trump can't run for office somehow.
Kinzinger called it "2016 all over again," where he and other Republicans didn't think Trump would win. Now there are those who help prop Trump up, like Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who denounced Trump, but then crawled back to him at Mar-a-Lago to beg for forgiveness.
"So, I think these candidates are scared, you are running for the position of the strongest leader in the world, and you are scared to take on this guy?" Kinzinger asked. "But it's also this idea that maybe other people will do the hard work, maybe other people like the justice system will do the hard work, and they can still run for the scraps and say 'I never went against Donald Trump. That is Ron DeSantis's plan. It's actually not a terrible plan if you're Ron DeSantis, which is, if you continue to be Trump light so if he does go to jail, you are the guy."
See the conversation below or at the link here.
'He knows better': Republican 'friend' knocks Tim Scott absolving Trump for Jan. 6 www.youtube.com
