WASHINGTON – Four months after supporters of President Donald J. Trump stormed the Capitol in a deadly riot, an increasing number of Republicans in Congress are making great efforts to rewrite the January 6th story, downplaying or downplaying the violence denial and distraction to investigate it.
Their denialism, which has been intensifying for weeks, and which was vividly demonstrated at two congressional hearings this week, is one reason lawmakers have been unable to agree on the formation of an independent commission to review the attack on the Capitol. Republicans have insisted that any investigation include an investigation into violence by Antifa, a loose collective of anti-fascist activists, and Black Lives Matter. It also reflects an embrace of misinformation that has become a trademark of the Republican Party in the age of Mr Trump.
“A refusal to establish the truth is what we have to deal with,” said spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday. “We have to find the truth and we hope to do so in the most bipartisan way possible.”
It made a direct link between the overthrow of Wyoming Republican Representative Liz Cheney as her number 3 – a move that arose from Ms. Cheney’s vociferous rejection of Mr. Trump’s election lies that inspired the uproar – and her refusal to acknowledge them Reality of what happened on January 6th.
A House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on the insurrection on Wednesday underscored the Republican strategy. Arizona Representative Andy Biggs, chairman of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, used his time to show a video of mob violence allegedly by Antifa that took place in Portland, Ore, 2,800 miles away.
His member of Freedom Caucus, representative Ralph Norman from South Carolina, asked whether the rioters involved in the attack on the Capitol were actually Trump supporters – despite their Trump shirts, hats and flags, the “Make America Great Again” paraphernalia “And the professional’s trump chants and social media posts.
“I don’t know who took the poll to say they were Trump supporters,” said Norman.
Another Republican, Georgia Representative Andrew Clyde, described the scene during the attack – which injured almost 140 – as a “normal tourist visit” to the Capitol.
“Let’s face it with the American people: it wasn’t a riot,” said Clyde, adding that the floor of the house was never breached and that no firearms had been confiscated. “There was an undisciplined mob. There have been some rioters and some who have committed vandalism. “
He then asked Jeffrey A. Rosen, who was the acting attorney general at the time of the attack, whether he viewed it as a “riot or riot with vandalism similar to last summer,” apparently referring to protests against the racial justice system that swept over the country Country.
Immediately after the attack, many Republicans joined the Democrats in condemning the forcible takeover of the building known as the Citadel of American Democracy. But in the weeks that followed, Mr Trump, backed by right-wing news outlets and some members of Congress, expressed the fiction that it had been carried out by Antifa and Black Lives Matter, an allegation that federal authorities had repeatedly debunked. Now a much broader group of Republican lawmakers have agreed on more subtle efforts to tarnish and distort what happened.
The approach has hampered the creation of an independent commission, modeled on the one that dealt with the September 11, 2001, attacks to investigate the Capitol uprising, its roots and the government’s response. Ms. Pelosi said discussions stalled as Republicans insisted on including unrelated groups and events, and that Democrats may be forced to conduct their own investigation through existing committees of the House if the GOP doesn’t drop demand would.
“Now we get this outrageous Orwellian revisionist story where Donald Trump says his most loyal followers walked in – literally he said he hugged and kissed the Capitol officers,” said Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland. “My colleagues should stop all the evasive maneuvers, distractions and distractions. Let’s find out what happened to us that day. “
Republicans involved in efforts to divert attention from the January 6 attack are merely arguing that they are pointing to the hypocrisy of the Democrats in investigating supporters of the former president, but not those in favor of movements on the left Orient the page. The subject was the focus of Ms. Cheney’s fall this week.
Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the top Republican in the House of Representatives, has insisted that the commission investigate the violence of the left, while Ms. Cheney publicly undercut him, arguing that they are closely focused on the January 6th events should.
“This kind of intense, narrow focus threatens people in my party who may have played roles they shouldn’t have,” Ms. Cheney said in an interview that aired on NBC Thursday.
Ms. Cheney may be referring to the fact that some Republicans were actively promoting Mr. Trump’s lie that his election had been stolen, urging their supporters to come to Washington on January 6 for a defiant final stand to address him to keep the power. Legislators linked guns to the organizers of the so-called Stop the Steal protest that preceded the uprising and used inflammatory language to describe the operations.
Republicans are also deeply concerned that an independent investigation will target their party negatively in the upcoming 2022 midterm elections. And many Republicans say they listen to their voters who want them to continue to stand with Mr. Trump and reject Mr. Biden’s victory as illegitimate.
Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois and a supporter of Ms. Cheney, said some sort of circular logic has taken hold of his party where Mr Trump makes false statements, his supporters believe them, and then Republican lawmakers who need support from those voters who are to be re-elected, they repeat.
“The reality is that you can’t blame people for believing the election was stolen because that’s all they hear from their leaders,” said Kinzinger. “It’s the job of executives to tell the truth even when it’s awkward, and we don’t.”
Instead, Republicans portray themselves and their supporters as victims of a Democratic plan to silence them for their beliefs.
Arizona Representative Paul Gosar, a leading Congressional proponent of the Stop the Steal movement, used his time at the hearing earlier this week to accuse the Justice Department of “molesting peaceful patriots across the country.”
“Open propaganda and lies are used to unleash the national security state against law-abiding US citizens, especially Trump voters,” he said.
Republican Jody B. Hice, Republican of Georgia, identified Trump loyalists as the real victims of the January 6 attack.
“It was Trump supporters who lost their lives that day,” he said, “not Trump supporters who took the lives of others.”
Nicholas Fandos contributed to the coverage.
