Just over one week ago, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert went viral because of a video she sent out to Twitter in which she appeared to be strutting around Washington, D.C., with a Glock handgun. (A spokesperson for Boebert later clarified that the lawmaker was not actually carrying the gun throughout the video shoot.) Since then, the pro-Trump Colorado representative has gone viral for an even more nefarious reason. In fact, this isn’t even just a head-scratching digital ad. Many of her colleagues are calling for Boebert’s resignation over her behavior both before, and during, the pro-Trump insurgency against the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday.
Now, as a quick review, Congress was set to vote to certify the Electoral College vote for President-elect Joe Biden’s win. Boebert, who has fully leaned into efforts to overturn the presidential election results, formally objected. That morning, before the insurgency, she tweeted: “Today is 1776.” What she tweeted while rioters were actually at the Capitol is what’s really chilling.
Here is the 1776 tweet.
While pro-Trump insurgents were descending upon the Capitol, many lawmakers did take to Twitter. Boebert joined them … and decided to tweet out that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been removed from the House Chambers. Though she did not specify where Pelosi had been moved to, obviously this tweet stunned countless people. After all, the viral photo of a man with his foot up on Pelosi’s desk is not quick to leave any of our minds soon. Nor is the report of a man who traveled from Colorado to Washington, D.C. who was arrested for allegedly making threats against Pelosi. There are reports that some who invaded the Capitol were searching for not only Pelosi but also Vice President Mike Pence and Schumer.
So it’s safe to say Boebert’s tweets were both chilling and concerning.
Boebert, however, only doubled down in releasing a statement on the calls for her resignation, saying in part, “We should take Democrats at their word when they say never let a crisis go to waste. Their hypocrisy is on full display with talks of impeachment, censure and other ways to punish Republicans for false accusations of inciting the type of violence they have so frequently and transparently supported in the past.”
In terms of her choice to tweet about Pelosi, Boebert argued, “They accuse me of live-tweeting the Speaker’s presence after she had been safely removed from the Capitol, as if I was revealing some big secret, when in fact this removal was also being broadcast on TV.”
She suggested that “leading Democrats” have encouraged “mob violence,” including former President Barack Obama and President-elect Joe Biden. She also accused a number of celebrities of doing the same, for who knows what reason, including Madonna and Johnny Depp.
And earlier Tuesday, she’s back with a pseudo unity call on Twitter.