Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) has made no secret of his distaste for President Donald Trump‘s efforts to overturn the presidential election.
Congress will meet on January 6 to fulfill its Constitutional role and officially count the states’ Electoral College votes, which will affirm President-elect Joe Biden‘s victory.
Lawmakers can object to electoral votes, and some Republicans have already signaled that they are planning to.
During an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Kinzinger noted what he expects to happen that day saying, “I expect there’ll be a little chaos.”
“This is a scam, though. I mean to explain to people that somehow Congress can overthrow the certified results of every state, that we can change an election outcome when there was not a single court case that had any legs,” he continued.
“Even if you believe that somehow the courts were inept in this whole process, if somehow you believe that this whole election was stolen, the reality is there is no impetus to overthrow even if you want to […] And so all that’s being done is that certain members of Congress, the president, etcetera, and quote-unquote thought leaders on Twitter are getting retweets. They’re getting followers. They’re raising money on this scam. It is a scam.”
He added, “It is going to disappoint the people that believe this election was stolen…But instead of being disappointed in the people who led them on this grifting scam, they’re gonna somehow try to convince these people that it was, I don’t know, what’s the new word? The RINOs in Congress.”
Watch the video below:
While Biden won the election, Trump has refused to concede and made baseless allegations of widespread fraud that altered the outcome of the election.
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) has already said he plans to challenge the electoral votes in the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, and Wisconsin — which Trump lost. However, it is expected that any objections to the votes will be dismissed.
Host Dana Bash asked Kinzinger if he was concerned about what Trump may do in his final days in office. He said he was concerned about what supporters of the president may do, who are expecting Congress to overturn the election, and a potential for violence.
But in terms of what Trump might try to do, he said, “The guardrails of the Constitution are there. In terms of martial law and the military, for instance, which has been discussed, the Pentagon and the military wouldn’t implement that.”
“As a lieutenant colonel in the military, I know that I can’t follow through on an illegal order even if it comes from the president,” he added.
