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WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene swept into the District of Columbia jail to verify on situations for the Jan. 6 defendants, with Republican lawmakers handshaking and high-fiving the prisoners, who chanted “Let’s Go Brandon!” — a coded vulgarity in opposition to President Joe Biden — because the group left.
A day earlier Speaker Kevin McCarthy met with the mom of slain rioter Ashli Babbitt, a Navy veteran who was shot and killed by police as she tried to climb by way of a damaged window through the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol.
And the Home Republican chief just lately gave Fox Information’ Tucker Carlson unique entry to a trove of Jan. 6 surveillance tapes regardless of the conservative commentator’s airing of conspiracy theories concerning the Capitol assault.
Taken collectively, the Home Republicans may be seen as working steadily however intently to distort the info of the lethal riot, which performed out for the world to see when Donald Trump’s supporters laid siege to the Capitol, and within the course of downplay the chance of home extremism within the U.S.
In actions and laws, the Republicans are in search of to painting perpetrators of the Capitol riot as victims of zealous federal prosecutors, regardless of many being convicted of significant crimes. As Trump requires the Jan. 6 defendants to be pardoned, some Home Republicans are trying to rebrand those that stormed the Capitol as “political prisoners.”
The result’s alarming to those that acknowledge a dangerously Orwellian try to whitewash current historical past.
“There is no query Marjorie Taylor Greene and different Republicans are trying to rewrite historical past,” stated Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the International Undertaking In opposition to Hate and Extremism. “They’re making gentle of what was a critical assault on our democracy.”
The tour Greene led on the native jail Friday comes as almost 1,000 individuals have been charged by the Justice Division within the assault on the Capitol — leaders of the extremist Oath Keepers convicted of seditious conspiracy. The 20 or so defendants being held on the jail, many in pretrial detention on critical federal prices, are amongst those that battled police on the Capitol, officers stated, in what at occasions was a grotesque bloody scene of violence and mayhem.
Greene advised The Related Press the concept she’s making an attempt to rewrite historical past is the “stupidest factor” she’s ever heard of, particularly because the assault on the Capitol has been captured within the 41,000 hours of video that McCarthy made accessible to Fox Information.
“We are able to’t rewrite it — it’s all on video,” Greene advised the AP.
“You possibly can’t change the historical past, however what we will do is expose the reality. That’s what we have to do,” Greene stated.
The nation has been right here earlier than — within the aftermath of the Civil Warfare, when the Misplaced Trigger motion sought to reframe the battle over ending slavery within the U.S. as one in every of states’ rights, and once more within the years following the Civil Rights motion as critics of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. questioned his transformative legacy.
Within the Home beneath Republican management this yr, the brand new management overtly questions what occurred on Jan. 6 in addition to how the federal authorities is investigating and prosecuting extremists. Exterior teams are elevating cash and rallying to the help of Jan. 6 defendants.
This previous week, a Republican-led Judiciary subcommittee probed the federal authorities’s therapy of fogeys protesting college board insurance policies — typically violently — as unfair. Subsequent week, the brand new Republican committee on the “weaponization” of the federal authorities will delve into First Modification free speech rights on social media.
McCarthy warned that the federal authorities is labeling mother and father as “home terrorists” for displaying up in school board conferences, despite the fact that such prosecutions are extraordinarily uncommon.
His was a reference to a 2021 Justice Division memo from Legal professional Basic Merrick Garland responding to the Nationwide College Board Affiliation’s issues about violent protesters in school board conferences. Garland had directed federal legislation enforcement to deal with what he referred to as a “disturbing spike” in harassment of college officers.
Probing the matter, the Republican-led Home Judiciary Committee launched a report displaying that in a single federal investigation, the FBI interviewed a mother for allegedly telling an area college board “we’re coming for you.” In one other, the FBI investigated a dad who opposed COVID masks mandates after a tipster to a federal hotline stated he “match the profile of an insurrectionist” as a result of he “rails in opposition to the federal government” and “has quite a lot of weapons and threatens to make use of them.”
“Mother and father ought to have a proper to go to highschool board conferences and never be referred to as terrorists,” McCarthy stated.
Whereas Greene has stated the Capitol assault was incorrect, on the jail go to Friday she stated she believes there’s a “two-tiered” justice system and that the Jan. 6 defendants are being “handled as political prisoners” for his or her beliefs.
Democrats on the tour stated that’s categorically false. Whereas the native jail got here has lengthy been the topic of complaints — the U.S. Marshals made plans to relocate 400 detainees after a shock 2021 inspection discovered elements of the ability “don’t meet the minimal requirements” — the Jan. 6 defendants have been housed in a more recent wing that was not cited as problematic within the Marshals’ assertion.
The 2 Democrats who joined the tour as members of the Home Oversight Committee stated they each had visited detention amenities earlier than. “It is in all probability nearly as good as a jail may be,” stated Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, a former public defender.
Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California famous the way in which the Republicans led by Greene handled the Jan. 6 defendants as celebrities — shaking their fingers and slapping backs when the lawmakers arrived within the jail facility.
As they left, the defendants chanted the “Let’s Go Brandon!” phrase in opposition to Biden, he stated in a tweet.
“What’s most vital to recollect is that whereas Marjorie Taylor Greene and others need to deal with these people as pseudo celebrities, a few of these people are insurrectionists,” Garcia advised reporters. “And we will not overlook that.”
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