GOP Senate Candidates Continue to Embrace January 6th Conspiracies Ahead of Insurrection Anniversary

Tomorrow marks three years since violent insurrectionists laid siege on the United States Capitol on January 6 in an unsuccessful attempt to invalidate American voters’ choice and overturn the 2020 presidential election.

 

Years later, Americans not only continue understand the gravity of what was attempted in the US on January 6 and the violence that occurred that day, a majority also believe that President Trump played a role in inciting the attack.

 

But MAGA extremists running for Senate across the country disagree. Instead, they’ve latched onto brazen January 6 insurrection conspiracies that range from blatantly false to utterly unhinged.

 

Their positions are a stern reminder to voters of just how out of touch these extremists are. And their attempts to subvert America’s democracy and deny Americans’ votes is something they won’t soon be able to escape.

 

Check out what these reckless and dangerous candidates and rumored candidates have had to say about what happened in the US on January 6:

 

Kari Lake, Arizona:

• All that January 6th was was a staged riot to cover up the fact that they certified a fraudulent election
• [Insurrectionists] haven’t been charged with a crime, and they were invited in by Capitol Police

 

Rick Scott, Florida 

• “Scott’s ‘no vote on Pennsylvania vote came near the end of 92-7 vote, at a time when 73 senators already had voted to accept the certified Electoral College votes from the state.”

 

Mike Rogers, Michigan 

• But this other part concerns me that [law enforcement] had people who had infiltrated this group
• Showing up at school boards and spending, you know, two years finding somebody that was standing on the steps of the Capitol doesn’t seem like a great use of resources for me.

 

James Craig, Michigan

• They appeared to let the protesters into the building. There was very little resistance by those officers; they just let them walk right in.

 

Matt Rosendale, Montana: 

• I was there on January the 6, it was a protest.
• President Trump is the only person who tried to bring in additional National Guard troops around the Capitol…but Nancy Pelosi denied it.

 

Sam Brown, Nevada 

• January 6^th is so complex that you have a mixture of, of what I imagined, some people believed was just a patriotic expression of their love of country, and some of their concerns.

 

Jim Marchant, Nevada 

• “Marchant, a former member of the Nevada Assembly, was one of the alternate ‘electors’ who was present when six fake electors from the Nevada Republican Party submitted election certification to the National Archives with Trump as the winner.”

 

Bernie Moreno, Ohio

• “[Moreno] has called Jan. 6 defendants ‘political prisoners,’ once said ‘don’t ever use the word insurrection,’ and shared a post from a right-wing Twitter account that condemned the Department of Justice for prosecuting people who were inside the Capitol”
• RTed @DC_Draino: “The same J6 where national guard troops were rejected by Democrats, where undercover FBI sources and DC PD officers were in the crowds, where Pelosi secretly worked to lower security measures, and where police launched flashbangs and tear gas into the peaceful crowds.”

 

Dave McCormick, Pennsylvania 

• I think that January 6th was a day where we had, you know, the large majority of the people participating in peaceful protest

 

Ted Cruz, Texas: 

• The Biden administration does is, is it conflates the acts of violence of a relatively small number of people with the peaceful free speech of thousands upon thousands of people in January 6^th.
• I’ve questioned [the FBI] multiple times on January 6^th, whether they had undercover agents that committed acts of violence, whether they engaged in incitement to acts of violence 

 

David Clarke, Wisconsin 

• That was not an insurrection. If we decide to pull an insurrection, you’re gonna know it.
• “[Clarke] has also insinuated that the riot could have been an inside job, calling it a ‘fedsurrection.’ Clarke has singled out the Proud Boys, whom authorities say played a central role in the Capitol mob action, urging the FBI to drop its investigations

 

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