It is probably not a strong indication that Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) commands a lot of respect from his peers that the claims he offered during a hearing Tuesday about the events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 generally were met with a shrug.
After claiming that he had a battery of questions for the officials testifying about security lapses on that day, Johnson instead spent his time delineating baseless claims about how the day unfolded written by a lone observer that had been published on a far-right website. The gist of the assessment is that since most of those present in D.C. that day were run-of-the-mill Trump supporters, those who stormed the Capitol must almost necessarily have been something else.
“He describes four different types of people: plainclothes militants, agents provocateurs, fake Trump protesters, and then a disciplined, uniformed column of attackers,” Johnson said of the article. “I think these are the people that probably planned this.” Continue reading.