Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger has pulled no punches as of late when discussing who could be in the crosshairs of the committee investigating the insurrection on Capitol Hill earlier this year.
It started when Kinzinger was asked directly by ABC News’s Jonathan Karl, “Do you think that some of your Republican colleagues bear direct responsibility for that riot?”
“It's possible. I'm not ready to kind of go to that point yet, because I want to let the facts dictate it. But I will tell you, yes, there are more texts out there that we haven't released,” the Illinois congressman responded.
The question was referencing text messages that went back and forth between Republicans and the White House during the events of January 6, texts that were part of the materials former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows turned over to Congress before he stopped cooperating and was held in contempt.
Kinzinger alluded to status and party affiliation being irrelevant when he said, “We're going to pursue doggedly everything to the ends of the Earth, and that includes, and we don't like necessarily to have to go here, but that includes members of Congress that had any involvement.”
So just how high up will the investigation go?
Kinzinger addressed this question during a sit-down with CNN’s Jake Tapper over the weekend.
“I think we will, by the end of our investigation and by the time our report is out, have a pretty good idea,” Kinzinger said. “We will be able to have out on the public record anything Justice Department needs maybe in pursuit of that. Nobody, Jake, is above the law. Nobody, not the president. He's not a king. Not former presidents.... And if the president knowingly allowed what happened on January 6 to happen, and, in fact, was giddy about it, and that violates a criminal statute, he needs to be held accountable for that.”
Kinzinger then zeroed directly in on the man who was still residing Commander-in-Chief that day.
“I have a lot of questions about what the President was up to,” Kinzinger said.
Tapper then asked if this would be an official line of inquiry for the committee. Kinzinger responded that it would, suggesting that the investigation is continuing to close in on the question of just how culpable Trump could be found for inciting the events that culminated in the deaths of five Capitol police officers and four Trump supporters.