Rep. Greene visits jailed suspects in Jan. 6 attack on Capitol
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Friday went to the Washington, D.C., jail to visit detainees accused of participating in the violent Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, saying the facility “violates human rights.”
The far right-wing firebrand says she wants to focus attention on the plight of those charged or convicted in connection with the insurrection aimed at keeping former President Donald Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.
“The DC Jail is mismanaged and violates human rights,” Greene tweeted. “I’ll … see Joe Biden’s two-tiered justice system first hand.”
Greene asserted that some of the Jan. 6 defendants had been forced to spend hours cleaning up the jail in the days leading up to the visit, apparently to cover up their previous dire conditions.Greene has portrayed herself as one of the staunchest backers of the so-called “J6” defendants, whom she calls political prisoners.
Although Republicans typically spend little time advocating for the rights of prisoners, Greene has made an exception for the Jan. 6 extremists, regularly suggesting that they are being treated too harshly.
“No prisoner in the United States should be treated in this fashion,” Greene wrote in a March 9 letter requesting permission for the visit.
An estimated 20 defendants tied to Jan. 6 are being held in Washington jails, all but three of whom have been charged with assaulting police officers. Of those, two have already been convicted of assaulting police and six others have pleaded guilty to those charges.
They are among about more than 1,000 people, including white nationalists and other extremists, who have been charged in connection with Jan. 6, the worst attack on the Capitol in more than 200 years.
Trump demanded that the right-wing extremists “fight like hell” to keep him in power by blocking Congress from certifying Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
Greene has long made it a top priority to defend those who have been arrested in connection to the Capitol riot and expose what she considers to be inhumane treatment inside the jail.
After a 2021 visit to the same facility, Greene releasing a report detailing what she called “abuse and neglect.”
Advocating for the Jan. 6 defendants is a key plank in the far right-wing effort to whitewash the history of the insurrection.
GOP lawmakers have bizarrely claimed that the raging mob was actually no more than a group of “tourists” visiting the Capitol.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., met Thursday with the mother of Ashli Babbitt, the Trump supporter killed by a police officer as she sought to break into a congressional chamber where lawmakers where sheltering from the mob.
In an unusual twist, two progressive Democrats planned to accompany Greene and her Republican-led delegation on the latest visit.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Tex., and Rep. Robert Costa, D-Calif., say they want to spotlight the serious crimes that the Jan. 6 defendants are accused of committing.