GOP lawmaker carried gun and told family to stay home on 6 January after suspecting colleagues knew about riot

Republican US Rep Adam Kinzinger has revealed that he carried a gun at the US Capitol on 6 January and told his family and staff to stay home after he suspected GOP lawmakers knew about the danger at Donald Trump’s supporters posed.

In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, the congressman – a prominent Republican critic of Donald Trump and one of only two House Republicans to support a select committee to investigate the attack – said he has a “suspicion” that some members of Congress knew what would happen that day and supported it.

“I will say, if you just looked at Twitter – the whole reason I brought my gun and kept my staff home and told my wife to stay in the apartment was looking at Twitter,” he told the newspaper in an interview published on 2 July.

He specifically referenced a post from US Rep Lauren Boebert, who wrote “Today is 1776” before a pro-Trump mob breached the Capitol, injured dozens of police officers, and threatened lawmakers in an attempt to stop the certification of millions of Americans’ votes.

“I don’t know what that meant other than this is the time for revolution,” Mr Kinzinger said of her tweet. “Maybe it was a dumb tweet that she didn’t mean. Fine. I’ll give her that credit for now. But if you have members of Congress who were involved in nurturing an insurrection, heck yeah, we need to know.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s select committee to investigate the insurrection was nearly universally rejected by congressional Republicans. A bipartisan effort, led by a team of Democrats and Republicans to create an evenly shared investigation commission modelled after the probe in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, was blocked by Senate Republicans.

The only Republican votes in support of Ms Pelosi’s committee were Mr Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, who was removed from her GOP leadership role following her vote to impeach the former president and opposition to his persistent election lies, which fuelled the riot.

Mr Kinzinger said he has “no legislative need” to speak with far-right lawmakers who have served as Trump surrogates in Congress while they downplay the riot.

“I give her credit for probably achieving what she intended to achieve, which is: I don’t care about the damage I’m doing; I want to be famous and raise money. Congratulations. That’s not a serious legislator,” he said of US Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene.

“I also see what she’s doing as dangerous to the country, and so I have no need to be her friend,” he added. “I think the vast majority agree with my position; they just aren’t speaking out. I don’t blame them all for that, but I wish more would.”

Mr Kinzinger was the first House Republican to publicly demand the invocation of the 25th amendment the day after the assault on Congress.

“The president has become unmoored, not just from his duty or even his oath, but from reality,” he said in a video statement on 7 January. “It is for this reason I call on the vice president and members of the cabinet to ensure the next few weeks are safe for the American people, and that we have a sane captain at the ship.”