Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) on Tuesday accused former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) of elbowing him as he passed in a Capitol hallway and chased after the former House leader.
The ousted Republican delivered more than one “shoulder charge” on another rebel who displeased him, the former Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger, according to a book Kinzinger released last month.
In it, he calls the California lawmaker “notably juvenile” for his treatment of Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman who like Kinzinger served on the 6 January House committee investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
And he detailed two times he says McCarthy physically “checked” him, “as soon as I started speaking the truth about the president who would be king,” Kinzinger wrote.
“Once, I was standing in the aisle that runs from the floor to the back of the [House] chamber. As he passed, with his security man and some of his boys, he veered towards me, hit me with his shoulder and then kept going.
“Another time, I was standing at the rail that curves around the back of the last row of seats in the chamber. As he shoulder-checked me again, I thought to myself, ‘What a child.’”