DALLAS — U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert suggested Sunday that the Jan. 6 riot was a left-wing conspiracy, denouncing the arrests of people who stormed the Capitol hoping to overturn President Donald Trump’s defeat as “intimidation” in the service of “tyranny.”
“I advocate for what Dr. King did — peaceful protests. But we can’t let them intimidate us from not protesting. That’s what this treatment of people that got arrested was all about — intimidation,” the Texas Republican, a former trial judge, said at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Federal authorities are still hunting for 300 suspects in the Capitol attack, and 535 people have been arrested.
Gohmert has been one of the most outspoken members of Congress echoing Donald Trump unproven claims that the election was stolen. On Jan. 6, Congress met to ratify the Electoral College tallies that by then each state had certified. Gohmert supported objections that would have nullified millions of votes.
Four days earlier, he had suggested that “violence in the streets” might be the only remaining option to block Joe Biden from becoming president.
On Sunday, at CPAC in Dallas, Gohmert suggested that Speaker Nancy Pelosi was to blame for the violent siege that sent lawmakers fleeing for safety, with Secret Service agents hustling Vice President Mike Pence into hiding for hours.
“On January 6th, the sergeant at arms had turned down, on behalf of the speaker, having National Guard there to help protect the Capitol. Why did that happen? You think they were setting things up?” said Gohmert, who won his seat in 2004.
Gohmert tied that conspiracy theory to the plot by anti-government extremists to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, last October. Fourteen men, apparently angered by lockdown orders intended to blunt the COVID-19 pandemic, face charges. The FBI and state authorities had infiltrated the group, and Gohmert insinuated that if federal informants knew about the plot, that made it a government conspiracy.
“What I read said five out of the 14 were working for the FBI, the feds. ... What percentage does it take of federal agents to make it a government conspiracy? This has got to stop,” he said.
As for the suspects in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, he portrayed them as political prisoners who are being denied access to 14,000 hours of surveillance footage that might help prove their innocence.
“Look, there’s been fraud in our elections. And some of us stood up and objected. And the Democrats went nuts,” he said, urging CPAC attendees to “encourage your member of Congress to join me in going to the jail in D.C. and demanding to see those prisoners. Tell your Congress members, and in the meantime, we have got to stand strong and not be intimidated by the federales using tyranny to try to stop us.”
