A forthcoming book by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) reveals that shortly after violence broke out on Jan. 6, 2021, he and some of his Republican colleagues gathered to discuss events in a Capitol complex supply closet.
“While we waited for the Capitol to be secured, I assembled our coalition in a back room (really, a supply closet with stacked chairs) to discuss what we should do next,” Cruz writes in “Justice Corrupted: How the Left Weaponized Our Legal System,” as first reported by Newsweek.
Cruz says “several” Republicans argued during that meeting that the party should suspend objections and vote to certify the 2020 election.
“I understood the sentiment. But I vehemently disagreed with it,” he writes in his book that will be published on Tuesday.
“I urged my colleagues that the course of action we were advocating was the right and principled one,” he writes.
The 2016 presidential candidate ultimately joined five other Republican senators in voting against the certification of the 2020 election result in Arizona and six others against the certification of the Pennsylvania result.
Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), John Kennedy (R-La.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) voted against certification of Arizona alongside Cruz, while Cruz, Tuberville, Marshall, Hyde-Smith and Hawley were joined by Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) in their votes against certification of Pennsylvania.
In his book, Cruz describes Jan. 6 as a chaotic day when “tempers were high” and some lawmakers were “blaming us explicitly for the violence that was occurring.”
“In the fog of the confusion, it was difficult to tell what exactly was happening. We were informed that a riot had broken out and that rioters were attempting to violently breach the Capitol building,” he writes.
“Then, a few minutes later, they instructed us to evacuate rapidly,” he writes.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has held a number of public hearings this year in which it has laid out a case detailing former President Trump’s role in the riot. The hearings culminated with lawmakers voting unanimously to subpoena Trump over his part in the events.
—Updated Tuesday at 11:35 a.m.