‘Please, Go Inside!’ ABC’s Raddatz Frets for Kinzinger As Hell-On-Earth Lightning Erupts While He Talks Jan. 6 Criminal Referrals

ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz worried for Key January 6 member Rep. Adam Kinzinger as lightning erupted behind him while he discussed the January 6Committee’s deliberations over criminal referrals for ex-President Donald Trump and others.

On Sunday’s edition of ABC’s This Week, Raddatz asked Kinizinger about the committee’s final moves, including the release of its final report and the criminal referrals that were the subject of a rare weekend meeting. But as Kinzinger spoke, Raddatz felt compelled to comment on the lightning that punctuated the downpour Kinzinger was standing in, and eventually urged him to go inside:

RADDATZ: And – and, Congressman, I want to turn to the January 6th committee. You announced this week that you will release the final report on December 21st. I know you were posting a lot of materials online, but what else will we see? Will there be another public hearing?

KINZINGER: So we’ll – we’re going to – we’re in the process of deciding what that looks like. So we’ll – I’ll – I don’t want to get in front of the committee in terms of announcing that. But what you will see with this report, and everything included, is a fulsome picture, right? I think we will be able to paint a very good picture over the summer with the hearings.

Obviously, we were limited on time. So there’s a lot more material we can add, a lot more context we can add, and then we can get into a lot of areas that weren’t discussed in great detail.

So, that will come out on December 21st, as I think the chairman has announced or the committee has announced, whenever we’re going to do that, but that, for the American people, will be that full picture.

And, look, all of this, it’s not about, you know, we’re putting anybody in jail. This is all about telling the American people about what happened and leaving with them the opportunity to say, democracies can have bad days, but how we come back from those bad days is how we’ll be defined. And lets define ourselves very well here.

RADDATZ: Got that thunder going behind you.

Congressman Bennie Thompson said the committee will probably made criminal refers to the DOJ. You have previously called them pointless but symbolically important. If there are criminal referrals, and I know you don’t want to get ahead of this, is it likely President Trump would be included?

KINZINGER: Yes, I don’t want to get too far ahead there. I’ll save that for the committee decision.

But look, I don’t think criminal referrals are pointless. I think the point on that is that it’s very clear that DOJ has decided to take this effort up. I mean there’s no doubt. I don’t know anything that you don’t know on that. DOJ doesn’t necessarily tell us what their activities are. But I think all you have to do is look out and say, they’re very interested on what happened on January 6th.

So, the criminal referrals themselves aren’t necessarily something that is going to wake DOJ up to something they didn’t know before, but I do think it will be an important, symbolic thing that the committee can do. Even more than symbolic. Just very clear that Congress thinks, you know, a crime has been committed here or the DOJ should – should investigate it.

So, only a few weeks away but, look, we’ve taken this job very seriously and we think the country is going to be far better off for the work that we were able to do.

RADDATZ: Well, we will all be – be staying tuned. Thanks very much for joining us this morning. Please, go inside. Thanks again.

KINZINGER: You bet. Thank you.

Watch above via ABC’s This Week.