U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) used his time during Tuesday’s first joint Senate hearing on the January 6 insurrection to publicly suggest “provocateurs” from Antifa, and “fake Trump supporters” were responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol that left five Americans dead, and led to the deaths of several other law enforcement officers. In reality, the thousands who protested and stormed the Capitol were almost exclusively Trump supporters.
Johnson read aloud a column from the far right wing website The Federalist, which is known for its disinformation and conspiracy theories.
That column claims that among those ho participated were “Fake Trump protesters. A few young men wearing Trump or MAGA hats backwards and who did not fit in with the rest of the crowd in terms of their actions and demeanor, whom I presumed to be Antifa or other leftist agitators.”
Johnson, who is running for re-election next year, is all too well-known as one of the eight Republicans who spent the Fourth of July in Moscow in 2018, and came back minimizing te extent of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Here are Johnson’s remarks from Tuesday’s hearings.
The response to Johnson’s disinformation was immediate and palpable. Many are extremely angry.