Johnson: J6 rioters and insurrectionists just 'happened to be walking through the building'

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson says some of the people in the halls of Congress during the January 6, 2021 insurrection were “innocent” and just happened to be there, walking about the building. Some are viewing his remarks as a further push by Republicans to whitewash that deadly day, which led to an impeachment of Donald Trump and later felony criminal charges for the ex-president.

Because of the COVID pandemic, the U.S. Capitol was largely closed to visitors on January 6, and tours had been banned for that day. Democrats had raised concerns after they said they saw some Republican members of Congress leading groups of people around the Capitol in the days before the insurrection. CNN had reported Democrats were “growing concerned about seeing large groups of pro-Trump supporters walking around the Capitol the week around the swearing in of the new Congress leading up to the January 6.”

Speaker Johnson told Newsmax on Monday he was fulfilling the “commitment” he made to release to the public all the video Congress has from the January 6 insurrection, and had recently released 13,000 hours of tape, but initially tried to blur the faces of the “innocent.”

“So I made a commitment immediately after I got the gavel that we would start with this and that originally, we were trying to blur some of the faces to protect the innocent, you know, people who were just there and just happened to be walking through the building,” Johnson told Newsmax’s Eric Bolling.

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Some critics are comparing Johnson’s remarks to those of Republican members of Congress denying the facts of the insurrection in the days and months after January 6.

U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) had called the insurrectionists “peaceful protestors” who were being harassed by the Dept. of Justice.

U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) had denied the insurrectionists were Trump supporters.

U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) had said, “if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”

“There was no insurrection,” Clyde insisted in May of 2021. “To call it an insurrection is a bold-faced lie.”

Bloomberg congressional reporter Steven Dennis, reporting at the time on Congressman Clyde’s remarks had noted: “People died, windows were smashed, they were chanting to hang Mike Pence, 140 police officers were wounded, the House, Senate and VP were rushed into hiding, staff cowered for hours in offices. Clyde suggests it was just an unruly mob with some rioters committing ‘vandalism.'”

Others noted the Republican National Committee, under the leadership of then-chair Ronna McDaniel had called the January 6 insurrection “legitimate political discourse.”

Even the Biden campaign picked up on Johnson’s remarks, responding with video from January 6.

Watch video of Johnson’s remarks below, the Biden campaign’s video above, or both at this link.