GOP Congressman: Charlottesville White Supremacist Rally Was a ‘Total Hoax’ by ‘Left Wingers’ Using ‘Civil War Re-Enactors’

‘It’s All Baloney’

Republican U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California says last month’s Charlottesville rally by white supremacists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and other members of the “alt-right” was a “total hoax” designed to bait President Donald Trump and to make him look bad.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports Rohrabacher, who is 70 and represents very conservative Orange County, “thinks the Charlottesville riots were staged by liberals and were ‘a total hoax.'”

It is a stunningly obtuse, ignorant, and offensive charge, one made not in reality, and one made worse by the killing of Heather Heyer, who was run over – while protesting the neo-Nazis – allegedly by a white supremacist.

Rohrabacher is the GOP Congressman who House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy last year “jokingly” said was on Putin’s payroll.

The California Congressman is “deep into” his Charlottesville conspiracy theory, “that Democrats were behind last month’s white nationalist riots in Charlottesville,” the Chronicle reports, adding: “Oh, and calling them white nationalist riots is a liberal media deceit, he said.”

“It’s all baloney,” Rohrabacher told the San Francisco paper.

Here’s what the California Republican, who was first elected in 1989, says happened in Charlottesville:

Under Rohrabacher’s scenario, a former “Hillary and Bernie supporter” got Civil War re-enactors to gather under the guise of protecting a Robert E. Lee statue there. 

“It was a setup for these dumb Civil War re-enactors,” Rohrabacher said. “It was left-wingers who were manipulating them in order to have this confrontation” and to “put our president on the spot.” 

Those of you who are fans of conspiracy connoisseur and conservative commentator Alex Jones, host of “Info Wars,” will recognize that scenario as one of his dreamscapes, which is “Pants on Fire” groundless, according to the nonpartisan Politifact.

As the vice chair of the House Science Committee, Rep. Rohrabacher in 2013 told members of a California Tea Party group that global warming is a “total fraud” used by liberals to “create global government.” 

UPDATE:
In November Politico labeled Rohrabacher “Putin’s favorite congressman.”

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Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license

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