GOP's Troubling Relationship with Jan. 6 Rioters and Law Enforcement

Republican lawmakers, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, are working to distort the facts of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and downplay the risk of domestic extremism in the U.S. They are seeking to portray the perpetrators of the riot as victims of zealous federal prosecutors and attempting to rebrand those who stormed the Capitol as “political prisoners.” This is alarming to those who recognize a dangerously Orwellian attempt to whitewash recent history. Meanwhile, nearly 1,000 people have been charged by the Justice Department in the attack on the Capitol, and some Republican lawmakers are being criticized for treating the Jan. 6 defendants as celebrities.