Sen. Ron. Johnson (R-Wis) who voted to acquit Donald Trump of the charge of inciting an insurrection against the US government on Jan. 6 is now claiming that an armed insurrection did not take place at the Capitol, and bashed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for rebuking Donald Trump.
“The fact of the matter is this didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me. I mean armed, when you hear armed, don’t you think of firearms?” Johnson told WISN radio. “Here’s the questions I would have liked to ask. How many firearms were confiscated? How many shots were fired? I’m only aware of one, and I’ll defend that law enforcement officer for taking that shot.”
He also argued that “groups of agitators” should be blamed for the riot, not “tens of thousands of Trump supporters” who turned up for the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally in Washington, D.C. that day.
“The group of people that supported Trump, the hundreds of thousands of people that attend those Trump rallies, those are people that love this country, that never would have done what happened on January 6,” Johnson said. “That is a group of people that love freedom. That’s a group of people we need to unify and keep on our side.”
[READ: Johnson, Romney clash on Senate floor over witness vote: “Blame you”]
Later, Johnson bashed Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell who delivered a scathing speech basically saying Donald Trump was guilty of the charge of inciting an insurrection, after he voted to acquit.
“Providing a scathing speech on the floor of the Senate, that does not reflect who I think the majority of our conference,” Johnson said. “You got our leader out there really representing himself and that’s his right to do but at the same time, he has to realize as our leader what he says reflects on us.”
Five people were killed during the riots, including Capitol Hill police officer Brian Sicknick who was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher, and 140 police officers were injured.
A bipartisan majority in the House impeached Donald Trump for ‘inciting an insurrection’. In the Senate, a 57-43 vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict, even though seven GOP senators joined all 50 of their Democratic colleagues to hold Trump accountable.
