A group of Republican lawmakers now want to openly defend the Capitol rioters

The U.S. Dept. of Justice arrested and charged over 500 people who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, many in a coordinated effort to overturn a free and fair election. DOJ expects to charge about 100 others as well.

"The investigation and prosecution of the Capitol Attack will likely be one of the largest in American history, both in terms of the number of defendants prosecuted and the nature and volume of the evidence," the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. wrote in March, when the list of people to be charged was estimated at about 400, The Washington Post reported at the time.

On Tuesday, as the newly-minted U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack launches, holding its first day of events, four far right wing House Republicans – some of whom has been linked to white nationalists – will be holding a different type of event.

Instead of working to uncover and piece together all the information about what happened on Jan. 6, including what led up to the attempted coup, four GOP representatives – Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert, Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene – will hold a press conference on the "treatment" of the January 6 "prisoners," suggesting they are "political prisoners," which is false.

The four extremists will hold that press conference Tuesday at 1 PM, "demanding answers on the treatment of Jan. 6 prisoners" from Attorney General Merrick Garland, per a press release.

"This is taking place on the same day as the Jan. 6 select committee's first hearing," Forbes' Andrew Solender reports. House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy "is also holding a presser ahead of that to counterprogram."

"The lawmakers have all pushed a baseless conspiracy theory that federal agents were behind the attack, with Gosar also casting slain rioter Ashli Babbitt – who was shot by law enforcement while trying to breach the House chamber – as a martyr," Solender says in a Forbes article.