Washington Republican Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler criticized her colleague, Colorado GOP Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, for tweeting the location of members of Congress during the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
The confrontation between the two occurred five days after the attack, on January 11, according to leaked audio of the encounter.
A furious Herrera Beutler accused Boebert of helping the mob of White nationalists, White supremacists and the MAGA minions of former Republican President Donald Trump who attacked the United States Capitol on the false premise the 2020 general election had been stolen, putting the lives of her colleagues in danger.
You can hear the audio below.
When Herrera Beutler asked Boebert if it was "true that you were live-tweeting, from the [House] floor, our location to people on the outside as we were being attacked," Boebert confirmed she had, though she attempted to justify her actions by claiming the event was "something that was live and public information."
Herrera Beutler did not accept this reasoning, telling her:
“So don’t ask us about security if you’re telling the attackers where we’re at. I yield back."
However, Boebert went on to suggest her decision to live tweet during the event was predicated on her belief "once we were on [the] move, there was absolutely nothing else that was broadcast" and because members of Congress were being evacuated to secure locations anyway.
The news of the recording quickly went viral and exposed Boebert to renewed criticism about the role she played during the attack.
Allegations Boebert gave a "large tour" prior to the insurrection surfaced after the attack, coming shortly after authorities announced they would investigate whether lawmakers gave rioters a tour of the Capitol building ahead of time, compromising security.
In the week after the attack, Representative Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat, said he saw Boebert "taking a group of people for a tour sometime after the 3rd [of January] and before the 6th [the day of the attack]."
He said he did not know whether any of the individuals who were with Boebert that day later participated in the attack.
In October 2021, Rolling Stone published an article stating several supporters of former President Trump who helped plan the insurrection had multiple planning sessions with senior White House staffers and Republican members of Congress.
Sources who spoke to the magazine said they met with several high-profile Trump acolytes, including Representatives Paul Gosar (Arizona), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia), Madison Cawthorn (North Carolina) and Boebert.
Organizers claim Gosar promised "blanket pardons" to anyone who participated in the attack, adding they "would talk to Boebert's team, Cawthorn's team, Gosar's team like back to back to back to back."
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