On Wednesday, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) once again staged a public stunt in which they tried to enter a D.C. jail where inmates connected to the January assault on the Capitol are being held. An official at the jail declined to allow Greene and Gohmert inside, which prompted predictably theatrical outrage from the self-confident duo. At one point, Greene asked the official what they were “hiding here,” adding that she’d “like to see the whole facility” rather than just the part with the Capitol riot-tied defendants.
Later on, Greene talked as though she had some substantive grasp of the legal principles she was discussing, but she sounded inept. As she put it to the official:
‘These people are being held pre-trial. They have not had their day in court yet. You cannot deny them visitors. You can’t. So you’re completely out of line in your position.’
Does Greene… know how jail works? Being held in jail doesn’t mean that you can have visitors whenever you feel like it. That’s… kind of the point of being in jail. In a video of the interaction between Greene and the others, Greene mentions the Congressional task of conducting oversight, and in a Twitter post including the footage, she mentioned the same — and the repetition combined with the similarity in phrasing almost makes it sound like she learned of this just recently. The cluelessness is embarrassing.
Check out the video below — on a previous occasion when Greene and Gohmert attempted a similar performance, fellow right-wing extremist Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) was also there. It’s unclear why he missed this clownish reunion:
Today @replouiegohmert and myself were denied entry to visit Louie’s constituent & conduct oversight at the DC jail.
I’m extremely concerned about the treatment of J6 defendants & now ALL inmates being held there.
Call the jail to demand oversight & transparency: 202.673.7316 pic.twitter.com/oK7YrvP96f
— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) November 3, 2021
The reality is that — despite heated and profoundly ignorant-sounding complaints from Greene and her cohorts — oversight of the conditions at the jail in question is, in fact, being conducted. Detainees whose cases aren’t connected to the Capitol riot were recently moved from the facility due to concerns about jail conditions, but the Associated Press reported how the “U.S. Marshals Service said Tuesday that suspects being held in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection do not need to be removed from the District of Columbia jail complex despite their complaints about conditions there.” Instead of engaging with actual issues related to jail conditions or treatment of prisoners — Capitol riot-tied or not — Greene is basically just putting on a show.
