Conspiracy theorist congresswoman posts photo with Pompeo days after Capitol riot
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo posed for a photo with a Colorado congresswoman who has promoted conspiracy theories and revealed details about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s whereabouts on social media during last week’s deadly siege of the U.S. Capitol.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, a freshman Colorado Republican, posted a photo on Twitter Sunday of herself with the nation’s top diplomat — four days after supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in a riot that left five people dead, including a police officer, in the building where Pompeo worked for six years as a Kansas congressman.
Boebert praised Pompeo as a patriot who helped Trump’s movement.
“A sincere privilege to meet Secretary of State Pompeo, who has helped MAGA in so many ways. History will look kindly about how President Trump and he handled ISIS, Iran, Middle East peace deals, North Korea, China, etc. Secretary Pompeo is a true patriot!” Boebert said on Twitter Sunday.
The State Department did not respond to questions about the photograph, but a source close to Pompeo confirmed it was taken during Friday’s meeting of the Republican Study Committee.
The House GOP group also posted a photo of Pompeo delivering remarks to its dinner, noting his membership during his years in Congress. Boebert can be seen in separate photographs from the meeting that feature Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
The Pompeo associate attacked The Star for asking about the photograph, which Boebert shared with her nearly 370,000 Twitter followers, and said the secretary took photos with all of the dinner’s attendees.
“The Secretary was honored to speak to the members of the Republican Study Committee at their event on Friday. After which he took pictures with every member of congress and the staff who attended. This story is a piece of shit guilt by association story that further serves to divide our country,” the person close to Pompeo said.
Boebert has made supportive comments about the fringe QAnon movement, which believes that Trump is at war with a secret cabal of pedophiles. She appeared on a podcast that promoted the baseless conspiracy during last year’s primary campaign.
“Everything that I’ve heard of Q, I hope that this is real because it only means that America is getting stronger and better, and people are returning to conservative values,” Boebert said at the time.
Boebert has since denied involvement in the extremist movement. Many of the rioters wore paraphernalia displaying their support for the conspiracy theory, including an Iowa man who was arrested by the FBI after he was photographed charging at police while wearing a “Q” T-shirt in a now-iconic photograph.
Boebert is facing calls for expulsion after posting on Twitter that Pelosi, the House speaker and second in the line of presidential succession, had been escorted out of the House chamber as rioters ransacked the Capitol building.
Members of the mob were recorded on video calling for the murder of both Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence.
Boebert said in a statement that the violence at the Capitol “was indefensible and these criminals should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” She stood by her vote to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania. She also accused the media of mischaracterizing her tweets about Pelosi.
“Some partisan officials and press have chosen to mischaracterize several of my tweets. Let me be clear: I do not support unlawful acts of violence and support the rule of law. Furthermore, my tweets came after both events referenced occurred and I never disclosed secure locations,” Boebert said. “Media outlets were also reporting the exact nature of my tweets via television. I am grateful for the service of law enforcement officers who kept us safe.”
Boebert received attention in the lead-up to the deadly riot for promoting her decision to carry a gun in the halls of Congress and her refusal to adhere to the District of Columbia’s strict gun laws.
Hours before the Capitol siege, Boebert posted on Twitter that “Today is 1776,” an effort to tie Trump’s refusal to concede to the American Revolution.
Moments before rioters breached the Capitol and delayed the debates on electoral votes, Boebert referred to the crowd outside the building as her constituents.
“Madam Speaker, I have constituents outside this building right now. I promised my voters to be their voice,” she said.
Boebert has continued to promote conspiracy theories about the election in the days after the riot.
“Hillary must be pissed it took the DNC until 2020 to successfully rig an election,” she said on Twitter Saturday.
Pompeo, a Wichita Republican widely seen as a contender for the presidency in 2024, has condemned the violence at the Capitol, but also stood by the president, whom many lawmakers blame for inciting it.
Pompeo has continued to post about Trump administration policy accomplishments on his official Twitter account in the aftermath of the riot and has bristled at the international criticism on his personal account.
“In the wake of yesterday’s reprehensible attack on the U.S. Capitol, many prominent people – including journalists and politicians – have likened the United States to a banana republic. The slander reveals a faulty understanding of banana republics and of democracy in America,” Pompeo said on his personal Twitter a day after the riot.
“In a banana republic, mob violence determines the exercise of power. In the United States, law enforcement officials quash mob violence so that the people’s representatives can exercise power in accordance with the rule of law and constitutional government.”
Pompeo faced criticism in November after he claimed that there would be a “smooth transition to second Trump administration,” days after Biden’s victory had been called by The Associated Press and other outlets.
Pompeo associates downplayed the seriousness of the remark, which was said with a chuckle, as Trump continued to contest to the election outcome.
During the Kansas caucuses in 2016, Pompeo, then serving as a surrogate for Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, warned a crowd in Wichita that Trump would be an authoritarian president based on his public statements.
However, Pompeo endorsed Trump after he won the nomination and soon became one of Trump’s most trusted lieutenants, first as CIA director and then as secretary of state.
As a member of Trump’s cabinet, Pompeo is among the small group of officials who could remove Trump from office through the 25th Amendment by declaring him unfit for office. Career diplomats at the State Department have urged Pompeo and other top administration officials to take this step, according to Foreign Policy, an outlet that closely covers the State Department.
Pompeo has not publicly indicated support for such a move as Pelosi and other Democrats call on Pence to pursue this option. But CNBC reported Friday that he and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin had discussed it with their staffs last week after the riot.
McClatchy’s Michael Wilner contributed to this report.
This story was originally published January 11, 2021 at 4:02 PM with the headline "Conspiracy theorist congresswoman posts photo with Pompeo days after Capitol riot."
