Embattled U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), a top Trump supporter, admitted that he felt safe during the January 6 insurrection because he trusted the MAGA crowd, thousands of whom were breaking not only the law but government property and causing physical harm.

But he also admits that if those rioters had been Black Lives Matter protestors he would not have felt safe – he would he felt “concerned.”

His remarks are causing anger and accusations of racism.

“I’ve made the comment that on January 6 I never felt threatened,” Johnson said on the conservative Joe Pags radio talk show. “Because I didn’t,” he stressed, meaning that he did not feel threatened.

“And mainly because I knew that even though those thousands of people there, they were marching the Capitol, were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote, I knew those are people that love this country that truly respect law enforcement would never do anything to break a law. And so I wasn’t concerned.”

Practically every person who stormed the Capitol was breaking the law. A police officer was killed, over 100 others were injured, some severely, including one whose eye was gouged out. And today the Dept. of Justice announced it plans to indict another 100 of the insurrectionists.

“Now had the tables been turned – Joe, this could get me in trouble – had the tables been turned, and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters. I might have been a little concerned.”

Listen:

Blatant racism from @RonJohnsonWI here. He says he wasn’t worried on 1/6 because the majority-white insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol “love this country,” but says if they were Black Lives Matter protestors he would’ve been concerned for his safety. #WISen pic.twitter.com/V3gm4cLw8v

— American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) March 12, 2021

Evangelical leader and Trump-devotee Jerry Falwell, Jr. personally approved the $1.2 million no money down sale of a Liberty University owned fitness center to a personal trainer he and his wife use. The terms of the sale include a guaranteed $650,000 “lease-back” in which Liberty University committed to pay for nine-years of use of the facility’s tennis courts. It also included a very low 3% interest rate, financed by Liberty University.

“Around 2011, Falwell, president of Liberty University in Virginia, and his wife, Rebecca, began personal fitness training sessions with Benjamin Crosswhite, then a 23-year-old recent Liberty graduate,” Reuters reports. “Now, after a series of university real estate transactions signed by Falwell, Crosswhite owns a sprawling 18-acre racquet sports and fitness facility on former Liberty property. Last year, a local bank approved a line of credit allowing Crosswhite’s business to borrow as much as $2 million against the property.”

This is not the first time Falwell has extended tremendous financial support to a young man he and his wife support.

“A Florida lawsuit brought public scrutiny to a relationship between the Falwells and Giancarlo Granda, a young man they befriended while he was working as a pool attendant at a luxury Miami Beach hotel and later backed in a business venture involving a youth hostel,” Reuters adds. “Falwell filed an affidavit in 2018 saying he used his own wealth to lend $1.8 million to the $4.65 million project with Granda.”

And U.S. President Trump’s now-jailed fixer, Michael Cohen, has said he helped the Falwells suppress racy personal photos, as Reuters reported this May, in the months before Cohen persuaded Falwell to endorse Trump’s 2016 White House bid. There is no evidence that Cohen’s efforts to suppress the photos were a quid pro quo for Falwell’s vital political backing.

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes notes: “Aside from, um, the eyebrow raising aspects between the lines, this is just a SHOCKINGLY corrupt use of university funds.”