A freshman representative blasted his fellow Republicans for ‘lying’ about the possibility of overturning the election results in Congress because they wanted to fundraise off of the chaos and their loyalty to President Donald Trump.
Congressman Peter Meijer of Michigan, an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, said accused the
is not happy with how his first week of service in the House of Representatives went down, claiming his fellow Republicans who objected to the Electoral College results – even after a pro-Trump mob descended on the Capitol Wednesday – either did so to earn favor with the president and his supporters or felt threatened.
‘As we moved to accept Arizona’s electors, a fellow freshman lingered near a voting terminal, voting card in hand.
‘My colleague told me that efforts to overturn the election were wrong, and that voting to certify was a constitutional duty,’ Meijer detailed in an op/ed in The Detroit News on Saturday.
‘But my colleague feared for family members, and the danger the vote would put them in,’ the freshman representative continued. ‘Profoundly shaken, my colleague voted to overturn.
Condemnation: Peter Meijer, a freshman Republican from Michigan, said that lawmakers who promoted election fraud claims – such as Missouri senator Josh Hawley – were responsible for riots
Sent while the Capitol was being desecrated: Peter Meijer, a freshman Republican rep, slammed the ‘grift’ which GOP members of Congress were involved in
‘I have been called a traitor more times than I can count. I regret not bringing my gun to D.C.,’ said freshman rep Peter Meijer, who refused to go along with fraud claims pushed by the most senior members of the GOP caucus
‘An angry mob succeeded in threatening at least one member of Congress from performing what that member understood was a constitutional responsibility,’ he wrote.
Of the several dozen GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate who voted to overturn the election, even after the unprecedented breach of the Capitol building, only five were freshmen: Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee.
Meijer did not say which of his freshmen colleagues was scared into submission.
Taylor Greene is a Q Anon follower and 9/11 truther, while Cawthorn, 25, spoke in the House after the mob had smashed through to back their demands.
Boebert has demanded that she carry a firearm in Congress, but did not go out to face the rioters and joined other House members in a secure area.
‘Those of us who refused to cower, who have told the truth, have suffered the consequences,’ Meijer said in his op-ed.
‘Republican colleagues who have spoken out have been accosted on the street, received death threats, and even assigned armed security.’
‘I have been called a traitor more times than I can count. I regret not bringing my gun to D.C.,’ he concluded.
But Meijer’s trenchant attack on House Republicans means he is directly criticizing the two most senior member so of the caucus minority leader Kevin McCarthy and minority whip Steve Scalise.
Both went all-in on Trump’s claims and did nothing to reverse themselves as the Capitol was desecrated by his supporters.
Meijer and a dozen other GOP lawmakers objected to Republican attempts to delay certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. He was joined by the likes of Representatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Chip Roy of Texas.
Meijer is taking over Justin Amash’s seat in Congress after the former Republican switched to Libertarian affiliation halfway through his term in a snub to the era of Trump Republicans.
‘Treason caucus.’ Critics have slammed House and Senate Republicans who voted to overturn the election results. The House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (left) is among them as was Jim Jordan, the Ohio rep who is a fanatical Trump loyalist
The 33-year-old Army Reserve veteran blasted other Republicans for using the attacks on Wednesday as an opportunity to align themselves closer with the objection effort and fundraise.
Both senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley send appeals for cash as the violence was happening and are now facing demands to resign or to face expulsion from the Senate.
‘I was sitting in my office watching the speech that he was giving to the crowd, encouraging them to come to the Capitol, where he continued to talk about how this was a landslide election and that it was stolen from him,’ Meijer told Reason of the Wednesday chaos in an interview Friday.
‘He believed that the outcome on November 3 could be reversed by Congress.’
‘And I talked to a number of folks who believed that,’ he continued. ‘And they believed that because they were being told that, right? They were being lied to.
‘They were being misled. Some of my colleagues in Congress, they share responsibility for that.
‘Many of them were fundraising off of this Stop the Steal grift. I don’t understand how you can look in the mirror and go to sleep at night without that weighing on your conscience, I fundamentally do not. I’m just at a loss for words about how some of them have acted in ways that are just knowingly, provably false. And they know they’re lying too.’
‘I mean maybe I’m coming in here with too naive an expectation of human capacity and decency, but I also was an interrogator in Iraq, so it’s not like I’m a Pollyanna,’ he said.
Marriott and Blue Cross Blue Shield stop donations to the ‘treason caucus’ who voted to overturn the election
Big business began a boycott Sunday of Republican members of Congress who followed Donald Trump’s demands and voted to overturn the election.
Hotel giant Marriott, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and Commerce Bancshare, the parent company of Commerce Bank and other community banks, all told Popular Information they were suspending donations to the group dubbed ‘the treason caucus’ by critics.
Ford, AT&T and Bank of America said told Popular Information they would consider lawmakers’ actions when deciding on whether to donate, and CVS, Exxon Mobil, FedEx and Target said they are reviewing their political giving.
Berkshire Hathaway said the same. Its owner, Warren Buffett, is the country’s most prominent investor and any boycott by his companies would set the tone for other investors.
The moves came as the two most prominent Trump loyslists, Texas senator Ted Cruz and Missouri senator Josh Hawley, both faced new demands to quit this weekend.
The Houston Chronicle, Texas’ second-largest newspaper, told Cruz in an editorial that it was time to resign, saying: ‘You have blood on your hands.’
Time to go: Demonstrators called for Josh Hawley to be removed from the Senate at a protest in St. Louis. The Missouri senator does not have a home in the state
Message: Demonstrators made clear their anger at Hawley who demanded the election result be overturned
Acolyte: Hawley followed Trump’s demands to overturn the election and is now the focus of anger and losing his donors
Existential threat: Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the Republicans in the House (left) went all-in on Trump’s fraud claims. He is now losing donors which could loosen his grip on the leadership. Among the other Trump loyalists were Matt Gaetz, who used a speech to claim violent protesters were actually ‘antifa,’ basing his speech on a facial recognition company being reported to have made the finding. It said he was wrong
And protesters in St. Louis, Missouri, held a public protest Saturday demanding Hawley quit.
It is unlikely he saw it in person; he does not have a home in the state he represents and used his sister’s address for his voter registration.
But the donation boycott, first revealed by Popular Information, represents a threat to more than just the controversial senators.
In total eight senators and 139 members of the House voted to overturn the election results in Arizona or Pennsylvania or both – among them Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, and his number two, Steve Scalise.
Both men face an escalating threat to their futures with the number three, Wyoming’s Liz Cheney, having vehemently opposed backing Trump, and a series of their caucus speaking up.
The latest was freshman Peter Meijer, of Michigan, who slammed those who voted to overturn the election on Saturday as cowards, liars and grifters.
And Adam Kinzinger, an outspoken anti-Trump voice, revealed a threat by a Trump loyalist radio host, David Webb, to force a primary against him for speaking out, tweeting: ‘I know one thing I’m at peace with… I didn’t cause an insurrection that killed 5 including a heroic Capitol Police officer beaten by a ‘patriot’ with a fire extinguisher.’
Marriott’s move is the first sign that big business will cut off the cash spigot to those who voted to overturn the election.
In a statement it said: ‘We have taken the destructive events at the Capitol to undermine a legitimate and fair election into consideration and will be pausing political giving from our Political Action Committee to those who voted against certification of the election.’
It had donated $1,000 directly to Hawley and $1,000 to his political action committee, and its political action committee donated almost $200,000 to Republicans in the 2020 election cycle.
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association said in its statement: ‘In light of this week’s violent, shocking assault on the United States Capitol, and the votes of some members of Congress to subvert the results of November’s election by challenging Electoral College results, BCBSA will suspend contributions to those lawmakers who voted to undermine our democracy.’
It had donated $500 to Hawley, but $10,000 to Tommy Tuberville, the new Alabama senator who voted to overturn the results even after other Republicans deserted the measure in the wake of the violence.
The former football coach is a political novice who thought his WWII veteran father helped liberate Paris from ‘Communists’ and said he would need six months to learn the rules of the Senate.
Another demand to go: Ted Cruz was told to resign by the Houston Chronicle as bog donors started deserting and more could follow. Among those reviewing donations in future are AT&T which is headquartered in Dallas
Pariahs: Joe Manchin, the moderate Democratic senator from West Virginia, said of Hawley and Cruz: ‘I don’t know how they live with themselves.’
All in this together: Matt Gaetz was one of the most recognizable House members of the ‘treason caucus’ and elbow-bumped Hawley during the joint session to ratify Joe Biden’s victory
Trump phoned Tuberville when senators were being held in a secure area as the MAGA mob ran free to ask him to object to even more states’ results when the Senate resumed election certification.
And Commerce Banschare told Popular Information: ‘At this time, we have suspended all support for officials who have impeded the peaceful transfer of power.’
It donated $5,000 to Roger Marshall, the new Kansas senator who voted to decertify both Arizona and Pennsylvania, and overall donated six times as much to Republicans as Democrats out of $113,000 in total donations.
Company PACs, which all three operate, are powerful tools because the companies’ own executives and employees are likely to follow their example in how to donate to.
The Blue Cross Blue Shield’s associations individual state members also look to the national association for political direction.
And candidates rely on corporate donations to be the backbone of the their operations.
They are much less costly to gather and process than those from individual voters and few politicians are successful at harvesting national small-dollar donations.
Among the two who were successful were Cruz and Hawley, who made text message appeals to their supporters for cash while the mob rampaged.
Three big-name companies deserting, and more reviewing could open the way for others to follow.
The biggest companies are represented by the Business Round Table, which is chaired by WalMart’s Doug McMillon.
It has still to spell out a position on donations but slammed Trump’s ‘fiction’ as being the reason for the MAGA riots.
On Friday it issued a statement which said: ‘Yesterday’s inexcusable violence and chaos at the Capitol makes clear that elected officials’ perpetuation of the fiction of a fraudulent 2020 presidential election is not only reprehensible, but also a danger to our democracy, our society and our economy.’
Hawley is so far the biggest financial loser out of the Republicans, with two of his mega-donors slamming him.
David Humphreys, a CEO whose family have donated $6 million to Hawley, said the senator should be censured, and Sam Fox, another Missouri donor, said he would never give to Hawley.
He also lost his book deal with Simon & Schuster for a work on big tech censorship and responded saying he would sue the private company for breaching his First Amendment rights.
Inside the senate the two are now pariahs for Democrats and Republicans are barely more friendly.
Joe Manchin, the moderate Democrat from West Virginia, told CNN’s State of the Union Sunday that he did not think the Senate had power to expel them but that they should be ‘beaten by the American people’ if they try to run for re-election.
‘I don’t know how they can live with themselves,’ he said.
Chris Coons, a moderate Democrat who is both close to Joe Biden and known for his friendships across the aisle, however has called for an expulsion vote, saying that by voting to overturn the election results they had lost the right to serve.
Pat Toomey, the Republican from Pennsylvania, said the two ‘would have a lot of soul searching’ for their actions.
He told NBC’s Meet the Press: ‘That’s going to haunt them for a very long time. They’re going to pay a very heavy price.’
Senators – and congressmen – are not subject to recall elections and can only be expelled by two-thirds majority votes in their chambers.
In the House there is little danger of an expulsion vote given that 139 Republicans voted to overturn the vote.
But an escalating big business boycott would cripple McCarthy and Scalise’s hold over their caucus.
It could also spread to a boycott of the Republican National Committee which voted after the violence to reinstate Ronna McDaniel as its chair.
She had been all-in on overturning the election, leading to questions over whether corporate donors could boycott her efforts too.