TRUMP SUPPORTERS TRYING TO MAKE CAPITOL RIOTS INTO “A WALK IN THE PARK”

 

        …Wisconsin Senator, Ron Johnson blatantly lied at the Capitol Riot’s hearing

 

A number of Republican senators and Reps are rejecting Senator Johnson’s false explanation of the "Capitol Riots”

 

As US Senators worked to explain the security failures that allowed a pro-Trump mob to storm the Capitol last month, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) offered a wholly different take on what had happened.  “That agent provocateurs and fake Trump protesters were to blame.”  It was really disgusting how the senator used unreal words to try to blame the rioters.  Those wearing battle armor and some with firearms carried by those he called ”fake rioters”

Critics, including some within his own Republican party, promptly slammed Johnson over his unfounded suggestions that the January 6^th insurrection had been a “jovial” protest and that the rioters who stormed the Capitol were “NOT” supporters of Donald Trump.  He tried to sell this , even as many of us saw how the mob left after Trump’s speech falsely told them he would be with them in “walking to the Capitol.”

“It’s disgraceful for a sitting Senator to spread disinformation so blatantly,” said Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who has been an outspoken critic of Trump and his role in the insurrection.  He said this on Twitter.  “It’s a disservice to the people he serves to continue lying to them like this. It’s dangerous and it must stop.”

As security officials testified about the intelligence lapses that allowed an armed group of insurrectionists to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6,  Johnson continued to repeat unfounded claims about the riot that have become a familiar refrain from those who want to minimize the event’s seriousness, and to distance the worst riot participants from Trump.

Quoting an article published on a far-right website, Johnson falsely claimed the “great majority” of protesters had a “jovial, friendly, earnest demeanor” and he blamed the violence that turned deadly on “plainclothes militants, agent provocateurs, fake Trump protesters, and disciplined uniformed column of attackers.”

"Fake Trump Protestors? Senator Johnson must have been watching a different channel."

In fact, more than 200 rioters have already been criminally charged by federal prosecutors, and there’s more to come, including many who have readily self-identified as "Trump supporters."  Also those who have documented ties to far-right extremist rebel groups. Federal officials have said there is no evidence of left-wing provocation or that any anti-fascist activists posed as Trump supporters during the riot.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) promptly dismissed Johnson’s claims as the hearing drew to a close.

“As our hearing concludes, I want to make one thing clear: ‘provocateurs’ did not storm the Capitol. They were not ‘fake Trump protestors.’ The mood on January 6th was not ‘festive,’ ” Klobuchar tweeted. “That is disinformation.”

The backlash to Johnson’s claim was swift. The senator’s name trended on Twitter on the next evening and a clip of the CNN broadcast that aired his comments had been viewed more than 1.7 million times on Twitter by early the next morning.

It makes one wonder what the Republican Senator was really trying to do by offering more false information that even his own party’s Senators and Reps could not support.

Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, a Democrat who may run for Johnson’s Senate seat in 2022, said he was not surprised by the senator’s speech.

“Expect the expected,” he tweeted that evening. “Same man who fear mongers with unsubstantiated immigration claims, suggests that health care, food, and shelter are privileges, and continues to dismiss the virus. This is who we know.”

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said Johnson was “a small step away from blaming Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and Hodag’s (You have to be from Wisconsin to know this reference) for the act of sedition on January 6.”

(The Hodaq is a fictional fearsome critter with a thick row of curve thorns on its back and a needled tail and with sharp fangs dreamed up in Wisconsin folklore.)

Johnson is not the only conservative who has sought to raise doubts about the motives of the Capitol rioters and the damage done on January 6.

Conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who was pardoned by Donald Trump for federal charges, joined Laura Ingraham on Fox News (of course), to baselessly suggest the riot was little more than “a bunch of rowdy people walking through the Capitol’s hallway” and to belittle the congressional staff members who have sought therapy following the violent insurrection. 

Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested falsely Monday night that there is “no evidence that white supremacists were responsible for what happened on Jan. 6.”  This is despite evidence that members of hate groups and dozens of people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list were in D.C. during the riots.  Interviews with the Capitol Police officers have also revealed that rioters continued to hurl racist slurs during the attack.

Despite those efforts to minimize the violence of Jan. 6, videos taken on the day of the insurrection, evidence surfaced by law enforcement officials and testimony at the hearing have illuminated what really happened when Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol.  It was a serious riot that left a number of dead individuals.

“There is clear agreement that this was a planned insurrection, and I think most members here very firmly agree with that, and I think it is important for the public to know that,” Senator Klobuchar said at the close of the hearing. “This was planned, we now know this was a planned insurrection. It involved white supremacists, it involved extremist groups, and it certainly could have been so much worse except for the bravery of the officers.”

It appears that devout Trump supporters such as Senator Johnson and his many strong followers will continue to sell the false misinformation about the insurrection on the nation’s Capitol.  It will be up to those others that were there at the event, such as Senator Klobuchar and Rep. Mark Pocan, to keep repeating the real information of what happened on January 6.

Copyright G. Ater 2021