United States Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and other Republican lawmakers holed up in a janitorial closet during the January 6th, 2021 Capitol insurrection, according to excerpts from Cruz's new book that were obtained by Newsweek.
"Toward the end of our two-hour session, as Senator James Lankford from Oklahoma was speaking, there was a commotion from outside the [Senate] chamber," Cruz recalled in Justice Corrupted: How the Left Weaponized Our Legal System. "Suddenly, Capitol Police officers rushed in and hastily escorted the vice president off the dais. Shortly thereafter, we paused the proceedings. In the fog of the confusion, it was difficult to tell what exactly was happening. We were informed that a riot had broken out and that rioters were attempting to violently breach the Capitol building. At first, Capitol Police instructed us to remain on the Senate floor. And so we did. Then, a few minutes later, they instructed us to evacuate rapidly."
Cruz noted that he and fellow lawmakers were escorted to a "secure location" where "tempers were high" and while a handful of their colleagues were "blaming us explicitly for the violence that was occurring."
Cruz also revealed that "while we waited for the Capitol to be secured, I assembled our coalition in a back room (really, a supply closet with stacked chairs) to discuss what we should do next."
Congress was in the middle of certifying President Joe Biden's landslide Electoral College victory over then-President Donald Trump in the 2020 election when the mayhem erupted.
Yet even as former Trump's mob was ransacking the Capitol – leading to five deaths and uncertainty about the state of American democracy – Cruz admits that he thought that Trump's lies about fraud in the 2020 election were worth defending.
"Several members of the group argued that in the face of the riot, we should suspend our objections and vote to certify the election. I understood the sentiment. But I vehemently disagreed with it," wrote Cruz. "I urged my colleagues that the course of action we were advocating was the right and principled one."
