Former Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman (Va.) tweeted his support for President Trump’s impeachment on Tuesday, saying it is “necessary” in order to combat conspiracy theories.
The former Virginia congressman put out a series of tweets saying the GOP is wrong to say that impeachment “could cause further violence” and that it “could [b]e more dangerous” not to impeach the president.
Many are calling for Trump’s impeachment after the Capitol attack last Wednesday that left five people dead and many others injured. Some rioters are self-proclaimed supporters of QAnon conspiracy theories.
“Allowing President Trump to walk away, validates messianic conspiracy theories and disinformation,” Riggleman tweeted. “If there is no accountability for POTUS & allies pushing radical conspiracies, those who believe Trump is the ordained protector will believe the conspiracies true, that he had so much evidence against evil-doers they would not convict him.”
Trump peddled conspiracy theories of election fraud for weeks after the election was called for President-elect Joe Biden. At a rally Wednesday he encouraged people to march to the Capitol to protest the “stolen” election.
While people were breaking into the Capitol building, Trump released a video on Twitter that continued to say the election was fraudulent and called the rioters “special.”
“Impeaching President Trump for his grotesque use of power and language to incite riots, based on coordinated disinformation, will aid in dousing the fire of conspiracy grifters and to show QAnon believers that WWG1WGA was a horrific lie,” Riggleman said, referring to the QAnon phrase ‘where we go one, we go all.’
“Impeachment destroys the mirage,” he added.
Articles of impeachment have been written and will be presented this week. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said he would consider impeachment depending on why the National Guard wasn’t sent in during the Capitol riot. However, other Republicans have said impeachment will cause more division and will not help the situation.