Marjorie Taylor Greene Pushes Republicans To Show Pity For Jan. 6 Rioters

WASHINGTON – Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is pushing Republicans to use their majority in the House of Representatives to show sympathy to the rioters who trashed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

This week, Greene asked Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), a member of the Republican leadership team, if he would support investigations into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s handling of Capitol security and the supposed mistreatment of rioters held at D.C. jail.

“I’d asked him if he would support investigations into Nancy Pelosi’s handling of security at the Capitol on Jan. 6,” Greene said in response to a question from HuffPost. “I also asked him if he would support investigations into the treatment of pretrial January 6 defendants.”

Scalise backed the idea of such an investigation, according to Greene. “He said that he would support it through the committees so that each committee, the committee’s assigned to that would be handling it.”

A major consequence of Republicans winning control of the House in last week’s elections is the elevation of Greene, who is barred from serving on committees in the current Congress because of her past statements, including ones casting doubt on school shootings and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The idea that people have been treated unfairly for participating in a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, as part of an attempt to overthrow the 2020 presidential election, is an extension of Donald Trump’s enormous lies that the election was rigged and stolen. Trump and many other Republicans have falsely suggested Pelosi deliberately left the Capitol vulnerable to attack.

Trump, who announced his 2024 presidential campaign this week, has said he would pardon the rioters if he wins.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said earlier this year that if Republicans prevail in the midterms, Greene would be allowed on committees. As McCarthy sought the party’s nomination for speaker this week, Greene enthusiastically backed him, breaking with other far-right Republicans.

Greene has said she hopes to get a coveted seat on the House Oversight Committee, the panel that will handle the highest-profile investigations of the Biden administration. Greene said it’s also the committee that would likely lead the Jan. 6 investigations she wants.

Oversight’s top Republican and likely chair in the next Congress is Rep. Jamie Comer (R-Ky.), who has already indicated the panel will obsess over alleged crimes committed by the Biden family.

“I look forward to talking with Jamie Comer who will be our chairman on Oversight and talking with him” about investigations, Greene said.

Representatives for Comer and Scalise did not respond to requests for comment.

The alleged plight of about 40 Jan. 6 defendants in pretrial detention at Washington’s Correctional Treatment Facility has become a cause celebre among far-right politicians, pundits and influencers, all of whom refer to the defendants as “political prisoners.”

In 2021, Greene, along with fellow far-right Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert (Texas), visited the jail’s “Patriot Wing,” where the defendants, mostly white men, have been segregated from other inmates, who are mostly Black.

The Jan. 6 defendants — accused of some of the most egregious crimes during the attack on the Capitol — have formed what they call the “Patriots pod,” nightly singing the national anthem together at 9 p.m. They have often publicly complained about the conditions in the jail while accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from supporters.

“I’ve never seen human suffering like I witnessed last night,” Greene tweeted after her visit. “While some were shown to us in seemingly beneficial programs, others were in tortuous lockdown. I’ll never forget hearing their screams.”

She added that the visit was like “walking into a prisoner of war camp and seeing men whose eyes can’t believe someone had made it in to see them. They are suffering greatly.”

Although investigations have shown that there are real problems with the D.C. jail, and that many inmates are held in terrible conditions, these problems existed long before the Jan. 6 defendants arrived. The conditions, moreover, are not unlike those in jails across America.