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Four Republican members of Congress made fools of themselves Tuesday by raging over the treatment of Jan. 6 defendants who are being held in custody ahead of their trials.
During an angst-ridden news conference, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Matt Gaetz of Florida and Paul Gosar of Arizona claimed the alleged rioters were being subjected to "unusually cruel" conditions.
While the four have tried to frame their advocacy for Jan. 6 defendants as a civil rights issue, a civil rights movement this is not.
The four archconservatives seem to have been down with the rioters’ cause from the jump. After visiting the Washington jail where many of them are being held, the lawmakers complained that the living conditions are subpar. The D.C. jail, where most inmates are Black, has long been criticized for its conditions, yet Greene, Gohmert, Gaetz and Gosar haven't seemed to sympathize its detainees … until now.
While the four have tried to frame their advocacy for Jan. 6 defendants as a civil rights issue, a civil rights movement this is not. Theirs is just an "uncivil whites movement," led largely by Greene — the maven of misinformation.
Greene on Tuesday repeated a baseless allegation she’s made in the past that the Jan. 6 defendants awaiting trial are being “treated differently on a whole another level” in jail.
A reporter at the news conference called out the four Republicans, asking why they appeared to be more concerned about the treatment of people accused of storming the U.S. Capitol than the police officers who were attacked during the riot.
Mixing one conservative conspiracy theory with another, Greene claimed Tuesday that the Jan. 6 defendants are being forced to undergo "critical race theory training" if they want to get a public defender assigned to their case. She also claimed the group of mostly white men is being treated differently in jail because of their skin color. Of course, she offered no evidence to back up these claims.
“They were isolated in a separate wing of the jail," Greene said, "where they are abused, where they are ridiculed, where they are mocked because of their political beliefs and because of Jan. 6, and because of the color of their skin."
Greene and the other three Republicans seem eager to let some Jan. 6 rioters skate, and they think this recent smokescreen of outlandish accusations will help them do so.
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