Lincoln Project co-founder says committee will go after Cruz now Trump has left office

‘You either hate him or you hate him,’ says Rick Wilson

The Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson has suggested that the political action committee will turn its attention to Texas senator Ted Cruz and other Republicans now that Donald Trump has left office.

The Republican super PAC that was set up in 2019 to prevent the reelection of Mr Trump, released several videos on social media during the 2020 presidential campaign relentlessly criticising the then president and his administration.

Mr Trump left the White House on Wednesday after losing November’s presidential election to President Joe Biden, who was then inaugurated shortly after.

Mr Wilson confirmed on the Texas political podcast Y’all-itics earlier this week that now Mr Trump has left office, the committee will focus on Mr Cruz and other GOP senators who supported a Republican effort to challenge the certification of President Biden’s victory on 6 January.

“We all know Ted Cruz is sort of a political force of nature. He is what he is. You either hate him or you hate him,” Mr Wilson said on Monday.

“And he is a guy who went so far over the edge, not just to appease Donald Trump and Trump’s base, but because he felt like Josh Hawley had gotten out ahead of him on it,” he added.

Mr Hawley, a Republican senator in Missouri, was the first official to announce that he would challenge Mr Biden’s victory at the certification of votes in Congress, but was quickly joined by other Republicans including Mr Cruz.

After a mob of pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol during the certification of votes, causing House representatives to barricade themselves inside offices, Mr Cruz and Mr Hawley continued their challenge, according to The Hill.

Speaking on Y’all-itics, Mr Wilson described the effort as “overtly seditious” and suggested that the committee will target Mr Cruz and other Republicans who were part of the challenge.

“For as much as everyone sort of cordially hates Ted Cruz, this is also about the fact there is a caucus of these guys right now,” Mr Wilson said.

“We hold them responsible for helping to inflame that language, perpetuate that conspiracy theory, inflame that crowd. Donald Trump may have struck the match but they poured gas all over the countryside,” he added.

On Thursday, seven Democratic senators filed an ethics complaint against Mr Cruz and Mr Hawley, who are both rumoured candidates for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, seeking to establish a “complete account” of their potential responsibility for the riots on 6 January.

The complaint seeks to probe whether “Hawley or Cruz took any action that encouraged the insurrections’ actions, and whether the insurrectionists cited senators Hawley or Cruz as part of their rationale for storming the Capitol.”

The Democratic senators, who lodged the action before the Senate Ethics Committee, claim that by announcing they would object to the vote, the GOP senators “amplified claims of election fraud that had resulted in threats of violence against state and local officials around the country.”

Five people died during the riots and several more were injured, as Mr Trump was impeached by the House for a second time for his role in inciting the rioters.