Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who is the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee’s Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, joined a visit Friday to a D.C. jail where participants in the Capitol riot have been being held, and afterwards, he shared some of the facts, refuting (among others) Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
The Georgia Republican, an ally to Trump and someone House Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) recently noted in theory could be a vice presidential pick for Donald, has been among the more prominent defenders in Congress of the Capitol rioters’ cause.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene is already telling lies about the conditions of the facility and saying that there was no insurrection on January 6,” Garcia said. “When we saw the inmates, my Republican colleagues rushed to them and treated them like celebrities rather than people who attacked our capitol police and our very democracy. The actions of our Republican colleagues inside the facility and their lies about the visit are shameful. The inmates that we saw were being treated fairly, and to be truthful, are being held in much better conditions than most Black and brown inmates in prisons across the country. As we left the facility, the January 6 inmates started chanting “Let’s Go Brandon.’ MAGA extremists’ claim that the January 6th defendants are political prisoners and have been subjected to inferior treatment is a complete fraud.”
Imagine the absolute firestorm of outrage that would build on the Right if Democratic members of Congress were facing accusations of having basically run to embrace — metaphorically or somewhat more literally — detainees accused of violent offenses including assaulting cops. The idea from Republicans that their party is some kind of bastion of support for police or unity against violence turns into more and more of a farce every time Greene or one of her allies return to this stream of nonsense, alleging in very specific terms there is some kind of double standard employed against the ex-president’s supporters, at least by detaining these individuals at all.
Greene actually responded to Garcia with a long-winded rant on Twitter complaining, once again, about trans people and again bringing up complaints about the process that left some ever detained. “They didn’t care about J6’ers complaints about the courts and judges and how they are being treated like political prisoners,” she alleged of Garcia and another Democrat on the panel.
