Ex-GOP Congressman: Members of Congress Texted Election Conspiracy Theory Videos ‘That Would Just Shock The Country’ If Made Public

Former Republican Congressman Denver Riggleman (R-VA) ripped into his own party on Thursday over the prevalence of election conspiracy theories while discussing his work for the House Jan. 6 Committee and his recent book, The Breach.

Riggleman was speaking to MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, herself a former prominent Republican operative, in the wake of Ginni Thomas’s sit-down with the Jan. 6 Committee and revelations Thomas told the committee she still believes the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“Ginny Thomas is operationalizing the Eastman memo. She’s writing to legislators and telling them, using her name, telling them to overturn the Biden vote, which was thrice counted in some of these states by Republicans in some of these states. Do you think that she’s of interest to DOJ?” Wallace asked Riggleman.

“I think she would be,” replied Riggleman explaining that Thomas’s actions to try and overturn the 2020 election mirrored other prominent conspiracy theory-based plots from inside Trumpworld.

“All of these actually align. So when you see people pushing the stop the steal nonsense, a lot of it based on conspiracy theories. You see this in this interleaving of conspiracy theories and strategy. And that’s what’s so fascinating about this, is that there was a strategy to overturn the election based on fantasy. It would be like saying we should overturn the election based on alien abductions,” Riggleman argued.

“I mean, I guess, I guess my pushback is they’re using the strategy to rig the next one. I mean, they’ve put I mean, I think the most alarming thing that happened today on this story is that Bennie Thompson confirms that Ginni Thomas still believes the lie. She is still as deluded as the people who stormed the United States Capitol. She believes the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump,” interjected Wallace.

“Nicolle, that’s that is why I wrote the book,” shot back Riggleman, adding in a lengthy reply:

That, I think was an incredible point, that we have the midterms coming up and 2024. How many people now believe the election was stolen and what kind of people are actually running for office? People who believe the election was stolen and now you got President Trump recruiting, you know, pictures with him with a Q on his lapel. Now is maybe worse, I think, than before January 6th.

“Why did you write the book?” followed up Wallace, asking for more detail.

“Fear. You know, really fear. You know, it’s been 14 months. And I think part of it was intensely personal, you know, what had happened to me. The fact is, the military, the government has trained me at a level to do this,” Riggleman responded, referencing his time as an Air Force officer and national security contractor.

“And it’s only on one side. It’s on the Republican side. I think there’s something that former Republicans feel more, they see how far the party has fallen and how dangerous they can be. Is that part of what you feel?” asked Wallace.

“How dare they? Right. You know, and I think that’s what it is. It’s how dare somebody make things up to win regardless, right? Try to destroy our institutions because you believe in some troll farm nonsense coming from, you know, basement dwellers, you know, talking about stop the steal conspiracy theories. That’s all based on another basement dweller like Roger Stone, right from Twitter,” Riggleman responded.

“Got to Ginni Thomas,” jumped in Wallace.

“Got to members of Congress, got to senators that you wouldn’t you know, and I don’t think, what hasn’t come out and I was very careful about that is, that just the hundreds of links attached to these text messages, videos that would just shock the country. You’d be like, there’s no way a sitting member would send these videos,” Riggleman concluded.

Watch the full clip above via MSNBC

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