Marjorie Taylor Greene downplays Capitol riot again, says she would have been armed if she had led it

Washington
CNN
—

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said over the weekend that if she had led the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the United States Capitol, “we would have won” and people would have been “armed.”

“I come to Washington, I take my oath on January 3, I am accused of doing insurrection tours that I thought were hilarious because I couldn’t even find the toilets in the Capitol. True story,” said Greene, a Republican of Georgia, during a speech at an event organized by the New York Young Republican Club, according to a video posted by the Twitter user. @patriottakes. “Then January 6th comes around, and the next thing you know, I organized everything with Steve Bannon here. And I have to tell you something: if Steve Bannon and I had organized this, we would have won. Not to mention that “He would have been armed. Yeah. See, that’s the whole joke, isn’t it?”

Greene continued: “They say it was all planned out and I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me? A group of conservative, Second Amendment supporters went to the Capitol unarmed and they think we staged this? I do not think so.”

In a statement to CNN on Monday, Greene said she was being sarcastic and, as she has done previously, denied any involvement in the Jan. 6 riot.

“My comments were making fun of Joe Biden and the Democrats, who have made me a political target since January 6,” she said.

Greene, whose public image was built largely on his willingness to make inflammatory statements and embrace fringe conspiracy theories, has previously attempted to justify the murderous insurgency and downplayed it as “just a riot “. But many of the rioters who were in the U.S. Capitol that day carried weapons such as bats and poles, and several carried firearms, including one rioter who had two loaded handguns and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Greene’s latest comments are also notable given the prospect that she will return to Republican-controlled House committees next year and former President Donald Trump’s determination to make ideologies behind the riot. of the Capitol a central theme of his new presidential campaign.

But despite trying to publicly downplay the deadly insurgency, text messages from her to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, obtained by CNN and given to the Jan. 6 committee, show her imploring Trump to stop the violence that day.

“Mark, I was just told there’s an active shooter on the first floor of the Capitol.[.] Please tell the president to calm people down[.] This is not the way to solve anything,” she wrote.

The White House on Monday condemned Greene’s comments, calling them “violent rhetoric” and a “slap in the face” to law enforcement and families who lost loved ones defending the U.S. Capitol that day.

“It is contrary to our core values ​​as a country for a member of Congress to wish the carnage of January 6 had been even worse and boast that he had achieved an armed insurrection against the United States government,” said White House spokesman. Andrew Bates said in a statement to CNN.