
A Republican-appointed judge just smacked down GOP deniers on January 6
On Wednesday, a federal judge named Royce Lamberth had had enough. Lamberth used the first sentencing hearing for a defendant charged in the attack on the Capitol to blast Republicans trying to cast January 6 as anything other than a violent riot aimed at stopping the wheels of democracy from turning.
The likes of Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson and Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde have actively attempted to suggest that the media coverage of January 6 has painted an inaccurate picture of what happened that day.
Even House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has gotten in on the whitewashing of that day — and Trump’s role (or lack thereof) in it.
“What I talked to President Trump about, I was the first person to contact him when the riots was going on. He didn’t see it. What he ended the call was saying — telling me, he’ll put something out to make sure to stop this. And that’s what he did, he put a video out later.”
“Speaking to the President from inside the besieged Capitol, McCarthy pressed Trump to call off his supporters and engaged in a heated disagreement about who comprised the crowd. Trump’s comment about the would-be insurrectionists caring more about the election results than McCarthy did was first mentioned by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican from Washington state, in a town hall earlier this week, and was confirmed to CNN by Herrera Beutler and other Republicans briefed on the conversation.”
Lamberth’s frank talk is a reminder — or at least should serve as one — that there isn’t a factual debate about what happened at the US Capitol on January 6.
A group of people, egged on by Trump and his loyalist allies, attempted to block the certification of the Electoral College vote. They did so because they had been fed a lie — by Trump and other GOP leaders as well as conservative media — that there was some sort of valid claim that the 2020 election had been fraudulent. They overwhelmed the US Capitol Police, often using violent means, and marauded through the home of the US Congress.
These are FACTS. They are NOT in dispute. We need to keep saying that because truth matters.