Former Rep. Denver Riggleman of Virginia.
Parker Michels-Boyce for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Denver Riggleman said his mother criticized him via text after he spoke out against Trump and QAnon.
“You are now part of the swamp … I’m sorry you were ever elected,” she reportedly wrote to him.
Riggleman, an ex-advisor to the Jan. 6 committee, detailed the exchange in his new book, “The Breach.”
Former GOP Rep. Denver Riggleman — an ex-advisor to the January 6 committee — said in his newly-released book that his mother sent him a text message stating she was “sorry you were ever elected” after he criticized then-President Donald Trump and the conspiracy theory-driven QAnon movement in October 2020.
Riggleman, who represented Virginia’s 5th Congressional District from 2019 to 2021, detailed his mother’s reactions to his outspoken statements about Trump and his condemnation of QAnon in the book, “The Breach.”
“What will it take to wake you up son … I love you so, but cannot stand by and listen to your elitist attitude and being praised by elitist journalist and democrats,” Riggleman’s mother wrote in the texts, according to the book. “You are now part of the swamp … I’m sorry you were ever elected … You are officially a politician … I have cried over you and my heart is broken by you.”
Riggleman wrote in the book that the message was sent after he appeared on CNN during a segment with journalist Jake Tapper, who interviewed the then-congressman on Oct. 14, shortly before the 2020 presidential election.
While on air, Riggleman condemned Trump for retweeting an article that promoted a fringe theory about the Navy SEAL Team Six, former President Barack Obama, and then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
In September that year, he introduced a bipartisan House resolution with Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey that rebuked the movement. The legislation passed overwhelmingly in the lower chamber by a 371-18 vote.
Riggleman in the book continued to ruminate over his mother’s political disagreements with him.
“I knew my mom and I were not on the same page politically, but this is something else,” the former congressman wrote. “Any hope for a mostly normal relationship seemed dim. She was damn near disavowing me.”
Riggleman wrote that his mother was religious and also firmly in the Republican camp.
He also revealed that his mother told him to leave her home after he ditched his Mormon mission, but noted that they still spoke to each other. However, it was only until he unsuccessfully sought the 2017 Virginia GOP gubernatorial nomination that their relationship began to mend.
In 2018, Riggleman was elected to the House, but lost renomination in 2020 after conservative outrage over him officiating a same-sex wedding the year before.
After he was ousted in the GOP primary, Riggleman became more vocal in his criticism of QAnon and the acceptance of the movement in some quarters of the party.
“My relationship with my mom made it through my break with her Mormon Church,” he wrote in the book. “I wasn’t sure if it could survive the Church of Trump.”
Riggleman said that after the relationship with his mother frayed, they eventually came together after his sister experienced some serious health issues — but he didn’t speak with his mother about his work on the committee probing the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
“If I can help even one person turn away from this fringe conspiracy culture or recognize Trump for the un-American grifter that he is, it would make everything worth it,” he wrote. “I’d be especially happy if that one person was my mom.”
After the 2020 presidential election, Riggleman during an interview with Forbes went on to criticize Trump in harsher terms, blasting his refusal to acknowledge Biden’s election victory, along with his character.
“He got so desperate to retain power that he forgot he was serving people and not himself,” Riggleman said at the time.