Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) — who, besides his work as a U.S. Congressman and his specific efforts to help uncover the truth surrounding January 6, is a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard — went after Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) on Twitter this week for showing his ignorance. A tweet from Cawthorn’s official account asserted that “Three-letter agencies put America last” — referring, by all appearances, to agencies like the FBI and CIA, glibly characterizing every such federal entity as somehow destructive to the United States. In reality, officials across these agencies do critical work for the protection of the American people — Republicans just don’t like when that work involves something like an investigation into one of their own. As Kinzinger put it in response to Cawthorn’s tweet:
‘Settle down kiddo. This is real life, not tree-boxing.’
Settle down kiddo. This is real life, not tree-boxing. https://t.co/i0boZotsAm
— Adam Kinzinger (@AdamKinzinger) February 11, 2022
A video has widely circulated showing Cawthorn punching a tree… for some reason. Cawthorn’s whole shtick exudes raging mediocrity; he’s yet another one of the cookie-cutter far-right stooges in Congress who parrot just about whatever comes their way from certain sources. After teenager Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty of murder following his trial for shooting and killing two people during protests in 2020, Cawthorn told his followers to “be armed, be dangerous, and be moral” — and raised the prospect of bringing Rittenhouse on for an internship. Cawthorn has also been a supporter of lies about the integrity of the last presidential election. At an event with a county GOP group in North Carolina last year, Cawthorn insisted that “if our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, then it’s going to lead to one place — and it’s bloodshed.” U.S. elections aren’t “rigged.”
Sen. Mitt Romney: "Liz Cheney and Congressman Kinzinger are terrific people who are doing a great job and who are doing something the American people want to get answers to."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 11, 2022
Cawthorn added at the time of those earlier remarks that there was “nothing that I would dread doing more than having to pick up arms against a fellow American,” self-confidently elaborating: “And the way that we can have recourse against that is if we all passionately demand that we have election security in all 50 states.” No matter his show of saying that he’d be generally inclined against “picking up arms” against Americans — he was still fundamentally offering an excuse for the hypothetical violence, all for the sake of long-debunked lies about election integrity. Kinzinger, meanwhile, is continuing his push for the truth in relation to the riot at the Capitol — and that includes exposing the truth of the election lies that helped drive the violence that day. The riot committee’s mission includes that purpose. Additional public hearings put on by the panel should be taking place in the near future.
Shame falls on a party that would censure persons of conscience, who seek truth in the face of vitriol. Honor attaches to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for seeking truth even when doing so comes at great personal cost.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) February 4, 2022
