Speaker Nancy Pelosi rebuked one House Republican who downplayed the Jan. 6 Capitol riot by comparing it to a normal day of tourism on Capitol Hill.
Pelosi, during a Thursday press conference, addressed Georgia GOP Rep. Andrew Clyde’s comments about the storming of the Capitol, which he made a day earlier during the House Oversight Committee’s hearing about the riot.
His comments were “quite appalling,” Pelosi said, adding, “You would not believe that a Republican member on the committee said that what happened that day was normal, orderly visit of people to the Capitol. Really? Really? Well, I don’t know on a normal day around here where people are threatening to hang the vice president of the United States or shoot the speaker in the forehead.”
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“Multiple people were killed, over 140 police officers were injured, a gallows was put up, and the attackers chanted, ‘Hang the vice president.’ Normal?” she continued. “You have to see it because it was beyond denial and fell into the range of sick.”
In Clyde’s comments, which came during an oversight hearing featuring testimony from former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, former acting Attorney General Jeffery Rosen, and Robert J. Contee III, the representative claimed there was “no insurrection.”
“There was no insurrection,” Clyde said. “And to call it an insurrection, in my opinion, is a baldfaced lie. Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes taking videos and pictures. You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the sixth, you’d actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”
The mob stormed the Capitol after then-President Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell” and to “peacefully and patriotically” make their voices heard because they were unhappy with Congress’s intent to certify Joe Biden’s presidential victory.
Trump, up to that point, had pushed a wide-ranging campaign to convince the public that he was the rightful winner of the election due to voter fraud, even though there was no evidence to substantiate his claims, which he continues to repeat.
Despite his comments, Clyde did admit the presence of some violent protesters, saying, “There was an undisciplined mob. There were some rioters and some who committed acts of vandalism.”
His office did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
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Five people died at the riot, and three Capitol Police officers died in its aftermath, though only one was ruled a homicide. More than 300 people who were at the riot have been arrested, with 65 of them charged for assaulting officers.
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