Speeches by some GOP lawmakers helped set the tone for the Capitol Riot. Now this rhetoric is eliciting negative reactions from colleagues.

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Two and a half weeks later, Gosar was repeating baseless claims about stolen ballots and rigged voting machines in a speech to Congress when he found himself interrupted by chaos in the House. Within minutes, lawmakers were evacuated from the chambers as rioters advanced through the heart of American democracy – spurred on by the same rhetoric Gosar and some of his fellow Republicans had embraced.

At least the first part of Gosar’s prediction had come true: Capitol Hill had been conquered.

Last week’s insurgency that left five people dead, including a Capitol Hill police officer, sparked a new impeachment initiative for President Donald Trump and a wave of criticism against top senators who voted to block the victory of President-elect Joe Biden. But Gosar and several other GOP colleagues in the House also face renewed scrutiny for their inflammatory language in the hours, days and weeks leading up to the siege.
One of the main organizers of the movement to overturn the election results said he worked closely with Republican congressmen. Ali Alexander, a leader of the “Stop the Steal” group, said in several videos broadcast live on Periscope last month that he had planned the rally leading up to the riot in conjunction with Gosar and two other congressional Republicans, Mo Brooks from Alabama and Andy Biggs from Arizona, as CNN first reported last week.

“We’re the four guys who made up an event on January 6,” Alexander said in a video in December. “It was to create momentum and pressure and then the day change the hearts and minds of members of Congress who were not yet decided or who saw everyone out there and said, ‘I can’t be on the other side of that crowd. ‘”

Brooks, a staunch conservative and one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, was one of the first speakers at the National Mall rally that preceded the riot, and his fiery language helped set the tone for what was to follow.

“Today is the day that American Patriots start taking names and kicking!” the six-term Republican shouted at the assembled protesters. “Our ancestors sacrificed their blood, their sweat, their tears, their fortune and sometimes their life … Are you ready to do the same?”

Hours later, as some of the people Brooks had spoken to smashed windows on the U.S. Capitol, the lawmaker tweeted live as he and his colleagues were evacuated from the chambers of the House.

“Tear gas dispersed in Capitol Rotunda”, Brooks wrote in a tweet posted from his iPad. “Members of Congress have ordered gas masks to be taken from under chairs in case they have to leave in a hurry!”
Brooks was the first member of Congress to say publicly that he would oppose certification of electoral votes for Biden. The day before the rally on January 6, he tweeted that Trump had “personally asked me to speak and tell the American people about the weaknesses in the electoral system that the Democratic Socialists exploited to steal this election.”
Representative Mo Brooks, R-Ark., Speaks Wednesday, January 6, 2021, in Washington, at a rally in support of President Donald Trump called the `` Save America Rally. '' (AP Photo / Jacquelyn Martin)
After the insurgency, as Brooks condemned the rioters and called to be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” he has also repeatedly suggested on social media and in interviews that at least some of the people who stormed the Capitol were members of the leftist group Antifa – a claim that has been widely denied.
Like Trump, who said on Tuesday that his remarks at the rally, when urging his supporters to “fight like hell,” were “completely appropriate,” Brooks has denied responsibility for the riot. , telling a radio host the day after the attack “absolutely” had no regrets.

He later argued in a statement Tuesday that his comments could not have been the cause of the violence. “No one at the rally interpreted my remarks to be anything other than what they were: a pep talk after the derelict kicking the Tories suffered in the dismal 2020 election,” Brooks wrote.

Gosar has been closely associated with the Stop the Steal movement for months. He tagged or replied to Alexander in more than two dozen tweets since polling day, sharing false rumors about the mysterious appearance of ballots and the removal of the vote count, and spoke at the rally of the December 19 in the state capital of Arizona that Alexander organized. He wrote an open letter online last month titled “Are We Witnessing a Coup?”
“Biden should concede”, Gosar tweeted on the morning of last week’s congressional vote, sharing a photo of pro-Trump protesters gathered outside the Washington Monument. “I want his concession on my desk tomorrow morning. Don’t make me come there.
As the insurgency continued, Gosar shared conflicting messages about the rioters. In a tweet with a photo of people scaling the walls of the Capitol, Gosar wrote “let’s not get carried away here,” adding that “if anyone in the field reads this and is over the line come back.” But on the right-wing social network Parler, which has since gone offline, Gosar posted the same image with a different caption: “Americans are upset.”
Even members of Gosar’s family say his tongue has gone too far. Several of his siblings – who recorded a viral campaign ad for one of his opponents in 2018 – have argued that he should resign or be impeached.

“My brother has sworn to defend the Constitution against foreign and domestic enemies,” the younger brother of Congressman Tim Gosar, a private investigator in Fort Collins, Colorado, told CNN this week. “And he blatantly violated that oath.

Gosar’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

UNITED STATES - DECEMBER 3: Representative Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Is seen after a press conference with members of the House Freedom Caucus to call on Attorney General William Barr to release the results of an investigation into the allegations of election fraud of 2020, outside the Capitol on Thursday, December 3, 2020 (Photo CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

During the Arizona Stop the Steal rally with Gosar, Alexander released a video he said Biggs, the chairman of the conservative Freedom Caucus, sent for the crowd.

“Andy Biggs here,” the Arizona congressman said in the recording. “I wish I could be with you. I am in the DC Swamp fighting on behalf of the people of Arizona and freedom fighters across the country. The crowd responded with a chant of “Biggs! Biggs! Biggs!” The Republic of Arizona first reported the video on Monday.

A spokesperson for Biggs told CNN that the congressman recorded the video at the request of Gosar staff and never worked with Alexander.

“Congressman Biggs is not aware of having heard or met Mr. Alexander at any time – let alone working with him to organize part of a planned protest,” the spokesperson said. “He had no contact with the protesters or the rioters, and he never encouraged or encouraged the rally or the protests.”

Biggs was one of the many Republican members of Congress who refuse to wear masks in a secure room where lawmakers were staying during the riot, according to a video posted by congressional news site Punchbowl. Several Democratic members have said in recent days that they have tested positive for Covid after being in the room.

Other Republicans in Congress also described their efforts to oppose Biden’s victory in historical and sweeping terms. In the days leading up to the riot, first-year Reps Laura Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia both called Wednesday’s voter certification a “1776 moment.”

And speaking at the same rally as Brooks and Trump, Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, another newly elected member, told the crowd that “Republicans hide and do not fight” and “they are trying to silence your voice “.

“I want you to sing along with me so loud that the cowards in Washington DC that I serve with can hear you,” he said.

New U.S. Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) speaks as supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump gather outside the White House ahead of Trump's speech to challenge U.S. Congress certification of U.S. presidential election results de 2020 in Washington, United States, January 6, 2021. REUTERS

A spokesperson for Cawthorn said the congressman condemned the violence during the riot and criticized Trump for “leading the protesters to Capitol Hill.”

Two Democrats introduced a resolution to censor Brooks for his comments at the rally, and others pleaded for the expulsion of Gosar and other Republicans from Congress who supported efforts to annul the election. Democratic leaders have yet to plan to vote on a censorship resolution, but the topic has been discussed several times in private conference calls, Democratic sources say.

“Mo Brooks and others like him should resign,” Congressman Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, told CNN on Monday. “They should have the decency to resign. They do not belong to this institution. They have shown contempt for democracy and freedom.”

Denver Riggleman, a moderate Republican who lost his main nomination last year to a more conservative challenger, said he believes GOP leaders should have a “come to Jesus” time and hold on to members of Congress who fanned the flames of the insurgency responsible. But he said he doubted the GOP base would punish members like Gosar or Brooks when they got back on the ballot.

“Those elected officials will likely be re-elected, and that’s the problem we have right now,” Riggleman said. “I think that’s what scares me the most.”

CNN’s Nelli Black, Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Ben Naughton and Bob Ortega contributed to this report.



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