GOP lawmaker confronted Lauren Boebert for tweeting Pelosi’s movement during riot

A far-right congresswoman who has been blamed by critics on the left for supposedly coordinating with rioters during the January 6 attack was confronted just days after the riot for some of her actions during the siege.

Rep Lauren Boebert has long faced accusations on social media and other platforms of giving rioters a first-hand look at the Capitol before the attack, claims which stem from a Democratic congressman’s charge that he saw Ms Boebert giving a large group of people a tour of the building weeks before the attack occurred. The Colorado Republican has denied that she gave tours to any would-be attackers.

Still, her image remains tarnished among not just her critics but some of her colleagues in the House as well, due to a tweet she sent alerting her followers that Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been removed from the House floor; the tweet was apparently sent as the moment in question took place and has been seen by some as the congresswoman attempting to alert rioters who were already in the building to the speaker’s whereabouts (though she did not tweet where Ms Pelosi was being led to). Ms Boebert denies this, and has insisted that she was only tweeting publicly available information at the time.

Now, two New York Times reporters have obtained audio of a fellow Republican congresswoman excoriating Ms Boebert over that tweet. It’s not completely clear in what context the audio recording was made, though it appears to be a recording of a Zoom call. The audio’s publication comes as part of the release of their book, This Will Not Pass.

“Is it true that you were live tweeting, from the floor, our location to people on the outside as we were being attacked, Lauren?” Rep Jamie Herrera Beutler is heard asking her colleague.

“Yes, those tweets did go out and that was something that was live and public information that was broadcast live,” Ms Boebert said, referring to the removal of Ms Pelosi from the House floor which she claimed was broadcast on C-SPAN.

Ms Beutler then snapped at her fellow Republican: “So don't ask us about security if you're telling the attackers where we're at.”

While the inter-party criticism is notable, it’s not exactly a surprise coming from the Washington congresswoman who voted two days after the audio was supposedly recorded in favour of impeaching Donald Trump over his role in the attack and efforts to overturn the 2020 election. She is now facing a crowded nonpartisan primary election in August.

Ms Boebert has a long history of angering her fellow members of Congress, typically with incendiary and sometimes racist statements as is the case with her frequent description of Rep Ilhan Omar, who is Somali-American and wears a headscarf as part of her Muslim faith, as a member of the “Jihad Squad”.