Rittenhouse Attorney Calls GOP Efforts To Cash In On Client 'Disgusting'

A defense attorney for Kyle Rittenhouse blasted Republican lawmakers on Saturday for trying to “profit” from his client’s acquittal in the shooting deaths of two men, calling it “disgusting,” Business Insider reported.

“There’s a lot of people trying to profit on this, and I don’t think people should,” attorney Mark Richards told Business Insider.

“They’re raising money on it, and you have all these Republican congressmen saying come work for me,” he added. “They want to trade on his celebrity, and I think it’s disgusting.”

Richards also called Donald Trump Jr. “an idiot.”

“I don’t have to expand on that because it speaks for itself,” he added.

Richards was responding to a since-deleted tweet from Trump Jr. Saturday announcing that a gun organization planned to award Rittenhouse an AR-15, and urged his followers to sign an accompanying a card “in support of Kyle.”

Richards also revealed Friday on CNN that he threw Tucker Carlson’s film crew “out of the room several times” while it was chronicling the Rittenhouse case. “I don’t think a film crew is appropriate for something like this,” he said.

As for Republican lawmakers he attacked, a number of them crowed about Rittenhouse’s acquittal Friday in the fatal shootings of unarmed Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber — and the wounding of Gaige Grosskreutz, who had a handgun.

The confrontations occurred after Rittenhouse, armed with an AR-15-style rifle, traveled last year from Illinois to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where protests had erupted following the police shooting of local Back residentJacob Blake, which left him paralyzed.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) on Friday touted the teen’s acquittal, and urged others to “be armed and dangerous.”

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) polled followers on Twitter Friday as to whether Rittenhouse should be granted the congressional Medal of Honor.

Both men, along with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), indicated they were going to offer Rittenhouse a position as a congressional intern. Gosar tweeted that he would “arm wrestle” Gaetz to “get dibs for Rittenhouse as an intern.”

Right-wing politicians, political action committees, other organizations, Rittenhouse supporters and family members have used the hot-button issue to fundraise; so have organizations on the other side of the issue.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.