Texas lawmaker walks back suggestion rejected electoral lawsuit could spark violence

After a judge threw out a court case seeking to give Vice President Mike Pence the ability to overturn the election, Texas Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert suggested that the refusal could lead to violence in the streets—a comment he later clarified.

In an interview with Newsmax, Gohmert described the ruling as an example of when the court system created by the Constitution “goes wrong.”

“There still has not been one court, state or federal, that has had an evident jury hearing and allowed the evidence of fraud to come in and be introduced. So all this stuff about it being debunked, unsubstantiated, those are absolute lies,” the congressman said.

When discussing about the court not hearing the case, Gohmert seemed to suggest that violent protests could force courts to hear the cases.

“But if bottom line is, the court is saying, ‘We’re not going to touch this. You have no remedy.’ Basically, in effect, the ruling would be that you gotta go the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM,” he said.

People shared that portion of the interview on Twitter and implied that Gohmert was trying to incite violence. MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance called for Republican leaders to speak out against such statements.

“In case you haven’t seen it already, Louie Gohmert has moved on from being smug & dumb to being a dangerous threat to the republic and to public safety. GOP leaders must speak up for a change,” she said.

Gohmert also told Newsmax that lawyers for the case were planning to appeal the lawsuit. When asked about certifying election results, the Texas congressman said that he plans to object election results. He feels that after evidence of fraud is presented to Congress, he’s hopeful that both the legislative body and Pence “will do the right thing” when it comes to certifying the election.

“I believed in using the court system for the same reason that they were created and article three of the Constitution: to resolve disputes. So you don’t have to have riots and violence and what we have seen from the radical Democrats. So I still believe in that system. I still have hope in that system,” he said.

He added that he would continue to fight while offering a grave warning on what it will mean if people don’t “come to the right conclusion.”

“We will keep laboring and working and trying to do everything we can to see that people come to the right conclusion, because I’m telling you…if they do not, it will mean the end of our Republic, the end of this little experiment of self-government.”

A contact for Gohmert directed Newsweek to a tweet on Saturday afternoon, where he disputed claims that he was advocating for violence:

I have not encouraged and unequivocally do not advocate for violence. I have long advocated for following the teachings and example of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. of peaceful protest. That does not keep me from recognizing what lies ahead when institutions created by a self-governing people to peacefully resolve their disputes hide from their responsibility. Violence is not the answer. The appropriate answer is courts and self-governing bodies resolving disputes as intended.