MTG’s Praise of This January 6 Rioter Is Deranged—Even for Her

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday praised a January 6 rioter who entered the Capitol building through a broken window and drank shots of whiskey in Representative Nancy Pelosi’s office.

Greene was leading a hearing on her report, “Unusually Cruel: A Continued Investigation Into the Treatment of J6 Political Prisoners,” and one of the people testifying was Trennis Evans, convicted of knowingly entering and remaining in a restricted building on January 6, 2021, serving 20 days in prison.

Greene asked Evans about his crimes, and he responded that “the government was kind enough to provide me a federal prison stay for demonstrations.” Greene followed up and asked, “Did you burn down the Capitol on January 6?” while holding up a picture of burning buildings, purportedly from one of 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests.

Evans responded in the negative, and said he would have been better off if he was an antifa protester, claiming that such a person was sentenced on the same day as him and only received probation. Greene then asked Evans if he assaulted anyone on January 6.

“Only the fabric of democracy, I hear,” Evans responded jokingly, drawing a chuckle from Greene.

“God bless you for your humor. Thank you,” Greene said.

It’s not surprising that Greene would appreciate a joke on assaulting democracy, given how she feels about the Capitol insurrection. Nearly two years ago, she remarked that if she had organized the riots along with Steve Bannon, “we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.” Greene also doesn’t seem to know the difference between a peaceful protest and a riot, once attacking a sit-in at a House of Representatives building supporting a cease-fire in Gaza as an “insurrection.”

To praise a rioter, however, is to praise someone whose goal it was to overthrow a U.S. election and attack the people whose job it was to certify the results. Greene probably would be saying something quite different if left-wing protesters sought to overturn a Republican election through violence, and probably wouldn’t be laughing over threats to “the fabric of democracy.”