Ted Cruz took refuge in supply closet during January 6 riot, book reveals

As a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol during the January 6 attack in a desperate attempt to keep him in the Oval Office, Ted Cruz hid in a closet next to a stack of chairs, but he never thought twice about continuing to sow doubt about the former president’s electoral defeat, the Republican senator from Texas has revealed.

Cruz revealed his whereabouts on the day of the deadly Capitol attack – which unsuccessfully aimed to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election – in a new book. The news was first reported by Newsweek.

The book – titled Justice Corrupted – recounts how Cruz was listening to his colleague James Lankford of Oklahoma speak in the Senate chamber when a terrible commotion erupted outside. Capitol police rushed in to escort Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, whom the mob wanted to hang, off the dais, and the session was paused.

“In the fog of the confusion, it was difficult to tell exactly what was happening,” Cruz wrote. “We were informed that a riot had broken out and that rioters were attempting to breach the building.

“At first, Capitol Police instructed us to remain on the Senate floor. And so we did. Then, a few minutes later, they instructed us to evacuate rapidly.”

Cruz said he was met with hot tempers after he and his fellow senators were led to a secure location, with some blaming him and his allies in the chamber “explicitly for the violence that was occurring”. After all, Cruz was among those who had helped spread the ousted Republican president’s lies that the election had been stolen from him, fueling the mob that now was invading the Capitol.

“While we waited for the Capitol to be secured, I assembled our coalition in a back room (really, a supply closet with stacked chairs) to discuss what we should do next,” Cruz continued, according to Newsweek.

Cruz said several of those in his coalition wanted to suspend their objections to the certification, but he “vehemently disagreed”.

“I understood the sentiment,” Cruz added. “But … I urged my colleagues that the course of action we were advocating was the right and principled one.”

Cruz later was one of just six Republican senators who voted against certifying Trump’s electoral college defeat in Arizona. He was one of seven GOP senators who voted against certifying Trump’s electoral college loss in Pennsylvania.

Such stances have helped make Cruz unpalatable in some quarters. He attended a baseball playoff game Sunday between his home state’s Houston Astros and the New York Yankees in the Bronx.

One cellphone video showed New York fans roundly booing Cruz, flipping him off and cursing him out, including one who called him a “loser,” before the Astros won and eliminated the Yankees.

Officials have since linked nine deaths, including suicides among traumatized law enforcement officers, to the Capitol attack. More than 900 rioters have been charged in connection with the attack, some with seditious conspiracy.

In a series of televised hearings this year, a bipartisan US House committee has publicly aired evidence seeking to establish that Trump had a direct role in the Capitol attack. That committee recently issued a subpoena to the former president ordering him to testify before the panel as well as produce documents.

Cruz’s term doesn’t end until 2025, meaning his office is not at risk during the 8 November midterm elections in which Biden’s fellow Democrats are trying to preserve thin numerical advantages in both congressional chambers.