If they did not foresee that the protest was likely to turn violent, they are incompetent to be in office.
By Rt teid Wilson - 01/07/21 01:15 PM EST
At least six Republican state legislators from across the nation participated in events surrounding the attempted insurrection at the United States Capitol on Wednesday.
News reports and social media posts showed at least one of the legislators, West Virginia Del. Derrick Evans (R), was among the violent mob that broke into the Capitol building. Evans, who was only recently sworn into office, posted a video of himself entering the building.
“We’re gong in,” he says in the video, in which he is wearing a helmet. He later deleted the post.
Other Republicans who participated in an earlier rally, in which President Trump incited his supporters to violence, said they had not entered the Capitol building.
•••••
“Just a whole heck of a lot of patriots here,” Tennessee state Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver (R) told The Tennessean. “We never experienced any violence.”
Weaver tweeted an image of the unruly mob at the base of the Capitol’s West Front.
Virginia state Sen. Amanda Chase (R) falsely denied that any violence had taken place.
•••••
Missouri state Rep. Justin Hill (R) skipped his own swearing-in ceremony to attend the rally at the Ellipse.
•••••
Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R) organized a busload of protesters from Chambersburg, Pa., to Washington for the rally. He was later photographed outside the Capitol building, though he said in a video on Facebook he had not participated in the violent clashes
•••••
Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock (R) addressed a group of protesters at the Capitol building. His wife Meshawn Maddock, who is running to co-chair the Michigan Republican Party, told the crowd “We never stop fighting.”
•••••
State capitals have been the scenes of menacing and at times violent protests in recent months, first against restrictions put in place during the coronavirus pandemic and then following President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over Trump. Governors and legislative leaders have been targeted and harassed, events that seemed to presage Wednesday’s violence in Washington, where a noose was erected on the Capitol complex.
The FBI broke up a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) last year. On Wednesday, a group of protesters in Salem burned an effigy of Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D), and a group of rioters jumped a fence at Washington’s governor’s mansion in Olympia. Gov. Jay Inslee (D) was moved to a secure location.
•••••
No comments:
Post a Comment