In a Special Event Assessment just days before the January 6 insurrection U.S. Capitol Police intelligence analysts warned that a sitting Member of Congress, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), “seemed to encourage violence” during a TV interview.
“In an interview Friday evening on pro-Trump news network Newsmax,” the intelligence report, dated January 3 reads, according to Politico, “Representative Gohmert claimed that letting the will of the voters stand would ‘mean the end of our republic, the end of the experiment in self-government.’”
“Representative Gohmert then seemed to encourage violence as a means to this end,” it continued.
The assessment had “noted that Gohmert had sued to try to get then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election results. The assessment added that a federal judge had thrown out Gohmert’s suit.”
“Representative Gohmert then seemed to encourage violence as a means to this end. ‘But bottom line is, the court is saying, ‘We’re not going to touch this. You have no remedy – basically, in effect, the ruling would be that you gotta go to the streets and be as violent as Antifa and BLM.’”
Congressman Gohmert in a statement responded tom Politico, saying he had “not encouraged and unequivocally do not advocate for violence.”
But right wing media reports echoed what the Capitol Police intelligence analysts had written. For example, The Hill, also on Jan. 3, reported that Gohmert “reacted to the dismissal of his lawsuit against Vice President Pence on Saturday, telling Newsmax that a court’s refusal to force Pence to overturn the presidential election results essentially served as a call to Americans to incite violence in the streets.”
So did more mainstream media outlets.
One day earlier Forbes had reported that Gohmert “suggested the ruling means street violence is the only option for Trump supporters who believe the president’s baseless voter fraud claims.”
Gohmert’s own home state paper, The Dallas Morning News, also on the 2nd, ran a piece titled: “Gohmert suggests ‘violence in the streets’ after judge rejects bid to force VP Pence to overturn Biden’s win.”
Rolling Stone published perhaps the most specific report, stating at the time: “The Trump sycophant suggested that those who live in a MAGA reality should ‘go to the streets’ and be ‘violent’ because of the court’s ruling.”
Here’s video the Capitol Police referred to: