Kinzinger Admits 'Lots of People Were Running,' Not only Josh Hawley

Former Republican member of Congress turned CNN commentator Adam Kinzinger admitted Monday evening that “lots of people were running” out of the Capitol Building, not just Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) as the January 6 Committee had selectively depicted in video footage.

“Yep. Lots of people were running that day. Because of, you know, the violence n things. Including Josh Hawley,” Kinzinger tweeted in response to video footage released by Fox News’s Tucker Carlson on Monday.

Carlson stated the clip released by the January 6 Committee in 2022 depicting Hawley singly running out of the Capitol was “a lie” and a “shame, edited deceptively by the January 6 Committee.”

“The clip was propaganda, not evidence,” Carlson stated. “The actual videotape shows that Hawley was one of many lawmakers being ushered out of the building by Capitol Hill police officers. And, in fact, Hawley was at the back of the pack. The ‘coward’ tape was a lie — one of many from the Jan. 6 Committee.”

Kinzinger, once a member of the partisan January 6 Committee who infamously cried during one hearing, failed to mention the clip was selectively edited in a 2022 tweet mocking Hawley, calling him “Fistpump McRunpants”:

At the time of the initial clip’s release, it went viral. Both Democrats and the establishment media tried to use the clip to mock Hawley and legitimize the partisan committee.

CNN claimed the clip could be the most memorable moment of the partisan hearings. “For all of the revelations that have come out of the January 6 committee, it may be Hawley’s slow-motion run from the Capitol that is the most memorable – and powerful,” CNN’s Chris Cillizza wrote. “Hawley fleeing from the Capitol later in the day speaks to the Frankenstein’s monster piece of this.”

The Washington Post’s Jonathan Edwards mocked Hawley in an article, “‘Run Hawley Run’: Video of Josh Hawley fleeing Jan. 6 rioters sparks memes.”

“[T]he footage of Hawley was all the same: two clips that aired in prime time during the most recent hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021… Both showed Hawley running from rioters as they poured into the building.”

ABC News reporter Will Steakin described the scene inside the committee room when the selectively edited clip was initially aired. “BIG laughs in the room as the committee shows Sen. Josh Hawley running in the halls of the Senate to get away from Jan 6 rioters,” he tweeted.

The “Mueller, She Wrote” Twitter handle portrayed the scene as the “loudness reaction of any moment of the hearing.”

“OMG BREAKING: there was a LOUD GUFFAW here in the room as they showed video of @HawleyMO running away, and another when they played it in slow motion. Loudest reaction of any moment during the three hearings I’ve attended,” the account reported.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.