Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is once again dowplaying the January 6 Capitol insurrection, calling it a “peaceful protest” with a few agitators.
“The fact of the matter is even calling it insurrection, it wasn’t. I condemned the breach, I condemn the violence, but to say there were thousands of armed insurrectionists breaching the Capitol intent on overthrowing the government is just simply a false narrative,” Johnson told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.
He continued, “by and large it was peaceful protests except for there were a number of people, basically agitators that whipped the crowd and breached the Capitol, and that’s really the truth of what’s happening here. But they like to paint that narrative so they can paint a broad brush and basically impugn 75 million Americans, call them potentially domestic terrorists and potential armed insurrectionists as well.”
Videos of the Capitol riot show insurrectionists wrapped in Trump flags clashing with police officers as they forced their way into the Capitol building to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.
This is not the first time Johnson has come under fire for downplaying the insurrection . I’m February after he voted to acquit Donald Trump in the second impeachment trial in the Senate he said that what took place at the Capitol “didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me.”
A month later he told a conservative radio host that he was not concerned about his safety because the insurrectionists were not “Antifa or Black Lives Matter.”
