Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said on Saturday that “no one can convince her” that the rioters behind the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol were not anti-fascist protesters and that she “cannot wait for a real investigation” to take place, in an apparent rejection of the House committee’s year-long investigation.
Greene spoke to fellow 2020 election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, aka the My Pillow Guy, after attending the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas when she made her unsupported claims and shared her shock at the day’s violence.
“I was very upset. I never expected something like that. And when it happened, I thought, this is antifa, and no one can convince me that they were so-called Trump supporters, and we know there’s a lot wrong there, and I can don’t wait for a real investigation,” she said, pointing a finger at antifascist protesters.
The House’s ongoing investigation into the attack included affidavits from supporters of former President Donald Trump describing how Trump’s rhetoric and his election loss fueled their decision to invade the Capitol. A former White House aide testified that Trump knew his supporters were armed and threatened with violence when he urged them to march toward the Capitol.
Despite this and other growing evidence to the contrary, Greene called the federal government’s response to the riots – which led to more than 800 arrests and more than 200 criminal convictions by the US Attorney’s Office – “political prosecution.” At the same time, she said those who did things “they shouldn’t have done” should be treated better while behind bars.
“OK, they’ve been charged for things they shouldn’t have done, OK, they did, they deserve their day in court, they deserve their right to a fair trial, but honestly, my god, what happened to these people? happening is so heartbreaking,” she said. “I was in that prison, I saw them, it’s so sad. They hadn’t bathed, they hadn’t been clipped, they couldn’t shave because they weren’t vaccinated. They were treated worse if they had not been vaccinated, but what kind of country are we?”
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who attended the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas, said “no one can convince her” that the rioters behind the January 6 attack on the US Capitol were not left-wing anti-fascists. (Photo: Pacific Press via Getty Images)
Greene added that pro-life activists who recently made headlines for marching outside the Maryland home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh should be in jail.
Greene has gone back and forth on whether she believes Trump supporters were involved in the destruction and violence that killed five people.
In April, some of her text messages to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows during the 2021 attack were published, revealing that she believed the protesters were members of antifa “dressed up as Trump supporters”. But she also asked Meadows to urge Trump to calm the rioters, which Trump probably couldn’t have done if they were antifa members, as many members of this movement are from the far left and against Trump.
“Please tell the president to calm people down,” she texted. “This is not the way to fix anything.”
A day later, she texted Meadows again suggesting that Trump supporters were indeed involved, but that they were desperate and “turned on” by antifa.
“I don’t think President Trump caused the attack on the Capitol. It’s not his fault. Antifa joined the crowd and turned it on, and unfortunately people followed suit. But when people try everything and nobody listens and nothing works, I think they think they have no other choice,” she wrote.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
