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Who is who in the Trump Caucus: Are they the Republican future?

  • January 15, 2021

Even after last week’s US Capitol riot by Trump supporters, most Republican members of Congress are still standing with President Donald Trump.

There were 139 Republicans who objected in the House of Representatives to ratifying Joe Biden’s Electoral College win and 197 who opposed the article of impeachment for an insurrection that Democrats brought against the president

In the Senate, the two senators who led the drive to object to Biden’s victory – Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz – have been unrepentant about their roles in encouraging the mob that attacked the Capitol.

Here are seven of the House Republicans still fiercely loyal to Trump:

Jim Jordan

A former national champion wrestler from Ohio, Jim Jordan was a vociferous advocate for Trump during his first impeachment in 2019 and battled for the president again this week [J Scott Applewhite/AP Photo]

When Trump was impeached for a second time in the House this week, Jim Jordan, 56, emerged as the president’s number one defender, fencing with Democrats in the House Rules Committee and managing the floor debate for Republicans.

In a nationally televised hearing, Jordan refused to concede any responsibility by Trump for the riot and, under pressure from Democrats, would not acknowledge Biden had won the election fairly.

“The gentleman from Ohio and others have given oxygen to the president’s conspiracy theories,” accused Representative Jim McGovern, a Democrat.

“Those of us who spoke against the unconstitutional way several states conducted their election were following the process,’’ Jordan retorted.

“We did nothing different than Democrats have done every time a Republican has been elected this century,” he said.

On Monday, Trump awarded Jordan the Medal of Freedom, the US’s highest civilian honour. Jordan was elected to Congress in 2006.

Louie Gohmert

A former US army lawyer, Gohmert has represented a conservative, rural area of Texas since 2005. On January 13, he defended Trump against the House’s charge of insurrection [House TV via Reuters]

Louie Gohmert, 67, together with a group of Republicans sought to overturn Biden’s election win in the key battleground state of Arizona with a lawsuit.

Gohmert’s far-fetched idea was to invalidate a century-old US law governing how Congress counts Electoral College votes and give Vice President Mike Pence the authority to throw out the choice of voters. It was tossed out by the courts but Gohmert refused to accept defeat.

“Thanks to spineless politicians, corrupt state officials and a coordinated effort to undermine the will of the American people in favour of business as usual in the DC swamp, we now find ourselves in a place where a stolen election becomes just another one of the miscarriages of justice this town refuses to remedy,” Gohmert claimed.

Paul Gosar

Representative Paul Gosar promoted the January 6 Trump rally that resulted in the attack on the Capitol [File: Jim Urquhart/Reuters]

Paul Gosar, 62, was among several House members who poured fuel on the fire before the Capitol riot with false conspiracy claims that Trump actually won the 2020 election but was denied victory because of fraud.

“Having failed everywhere else, they brazenly engaged in systematic voter fraud and are trying to steal this election. They did it right in front of us with no shame,” Gosar wrote in a December 7 op-ed titled Are We Witnessing a Coup d’etat?

A former dentist whose siblings say he “peddles in propaganda”, Gosar tweeted a picture of the crowd assembled for Trump’s speech on January 6 and called on Biden to concede.

Mo Brooks

On January 6, Mo Brooks condemned ‘socialists’ and ‘weak-kneed Republicans’ who would vote to confirm Biden’s Electoral College win [Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo]

Mo Brooks, 66, was the first Republican to say he would object to the certification of Biden’s Electoral College win. He gave a fiery speech to the crowd of Trump supporters at the president’s rally on January 6.

“Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking a**,” Brooks told them before they marched on the Capitol.

Democrats have called for Brooks to be censured or expelled for supporting “Trump’s baseless and dangerous election theft claims”.

Matt Gaetz

The son of a politician, Gaetz was elected to the US Congress in 2016. He campaigned for Trump in Ocala, Florida, on October 16 [File: Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP Photo]

After pro-Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and temporarily disrupted Congress’s count of the Electoral College votes for Biden, Matt Gaetz, 38, tried to shift blame for the riots.

In remarks on the House floor, he claimed facial recognition data showed people who breached the Capitol were not Trump supporters.

“They were masquerading as Trump supporters and in fact, were members of the violent terrorist group Antifa,” Gaetz said.

And he accused Democrats and the media of stoking a climate of violence.

“Before the rioters tore through that glass, Speaker Pelosi stood at that rostrum and tore through the president’s State of the Union speech, inciting anger, resentment, division,” he said.

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene wore a ‘Trump Won’ face mask to take her oath of office as a newly elected member of the 117th Congress on January 3 [Erin Scott/Pool via Reuters]

Marjorie Taylor Greene, 46, is a freshman member of Congress from Georgia who has endorsed QAnon conspiracy theories and posted a picture of herself on Facebook with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.

Her incendiary rhetoric in a nationally televised House floor speech defending Trump from impeachment prompted a Democratic legislator, in a CNN interview, to call her and her Republican colleagues “depraved” and “dangerous”.

She has announced she will introduce articles of impeachment against “Quid pro-Joe Biden” when Congress returns next week. But with Democrats in control of the House and no evidence that Biden did anything wrong the move is purely a political stunt.

Lauren Boebert

Lauren Boebert, 34, is a newly elected member of the House from Colorado and avid gun rights advocate. She objected to certifying the Electoral College votes for Biden from Arizona and repeated debunked fraud claims in remarks to the House.

“The members who stand here today and accept the results of this concentrated, coordinated, partisan effort by Democrats – where every fraudulent vote cancelled out the vote of an honest American – have sided with the extremist left,” Boebert said as pro-Trump supporters marched on the Capitol.

Boebert – seen here packing a pistol during her campaign – said she would refuse to honour rules that prohibit members from bringing weapons onto the House floor [File: David Zalubowski/AP Photo]

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