Former Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher is now admitting that he attended Donald Trump’s ‘Stop the Steal’ rally in Washington on January 6 but insist he was not a member of the mob that storm the Capitol building.
Rohrabacher’s attendance was exposed on Twitter Saturday by an investigative group called Capitol Hunters. He was seen wearing a knit hat and overcoat.
Rohrabacher joined a group that crossed police barricades, making him the highest profile politician known to be in the crowd on Jan. 6.
There is no evidence that he went into the Capitol building.
“I marched to protest, and I thought the election was fraudulent and it should be investigated, and I wanted to express that and be supportive of that demand,” Rohrabacher told the Portland Press Herald. “But I was not there to make a scene and do things that were unacceptable for anyone to do.”
Rohrabacher represented districts in California in the U.S. House of Representatives for three decades before he was voted out of office in 2018. During his time in Congress he became known as “Putin’s favorite congressman” for advocating closer ties with Russia and his close relationship with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin.
Rohrabacher is not among the more than 500 people charged by the Justice Department in connection with the deadly insurrection.
