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Late last week, Sen. J.D. Vance spoke to a crowd in New Hampshire, campaigning on Donald Trump’s behalf ahead of the state’s presidential primary, when a woman in the audience interrupted him.
“When are we going to find out the truth about Jan. 6?” she asked. The Ohio Republican not only appreciated the question, he said this was “maybe the most important thing” Trump would do in a second term.
It might’ve seemed implausible in the recent past, but as this election year gets underway, it appears increasingly likely that Republicans are going to make this a prominent campaign issue.
In the House, for example, Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk, in his capacity as the chair of the House Administration’s subcommittee on oversight, is overseeing a partisan investigation into “what really happened” on Jan. 6. The Georgian suggested two weeks ago that “the truth” about the right-wing attack on the Capitol is still out there, and he intends to help expose it.
Around the same time, Raw Story reported:
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) attempted to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 insurrection at a screening of a new documentary about the U.S. Capitol riot produced by a right-wing conspiracy outlet. The Wisconsin Republican — who was recently called out by his state’s governor, Tony Evers, for taking part in the scheme leading up to the insurrection — spoke Tuesday evening at the Capitol screening of “The Real Story of Jan. 6 Part 2: The Long Road Home,” produced by the Epoch Times.
The Epoch Times, incidentally, is a conspiratorial outlet powered by Falun Gong, a Chinese religious group. As NBC News reported a few months ago, Falun Gong “launched The Epoch Times as a free propaganda newsletter more than two decades ago to oppose the Chinese Communist Party.”
Now, its influence in conservative politics has reached the point at which it can produce a conspiratorial film and receive support from a sitting U.S. senator.
“We always say, ‘To the victor go the spoils,’” Johnson reportedly said at the screening. “The victor writes the history, and unfortunately, in November 2020, Democrats had the full sweep. They had all the levers of power, and they wrote the history of Jan. 6.”
In reality, whether the Wisconsin Republican likes it or not, it wasn’t Democrats who wrote the history of the insurrectionist riot. The public’s understanding of the events was shaped by a combination of factors, including a bipartisan congressional investigation, probes launched by law enforcement and criminal prosecutors, accounts from rioters themselves, and extensive journalistic scrutiny.
And yet, prominent GOP lawmakers are telling the public that there are still hidden truths, as the party’s likely presidential nominee — and some of his more sycophantic allies — refers to Jan. 6 criminals as “hostages.”
Coming soon to a campaign ad near you.