Far-right US lawmaker says she would have armed Jan. 6 Capitol riot

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - Far-right Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor-Greene said over the weekend that if she were to have organized the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot "it would've been armed."

“I got to tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed," she said during the New York Young Republican Club Gala on Saturday night.

"That's the whole joke, isn't it? They say the whole thing was planned, and I'm like, are you kidding me? A bunch of conservatives, Second Amendment supporters went in the Capitol without guns and they think we organized that? I don't think so," she added.

The representative's remarks about the violent attempt to prevent US President Joe Biden from assuming office were captured by Patriot Takes, a far-right monitor, and posted on Twitter.

Among those in attendance for Saturday's New York City Republican gathering were Bannon, former President Donald Trump's chief strategist who is now facing prison time after being convicted of contempt of Congress, Donald Trump, Jr., and alt-right provocateur Jack Posobiec.

Greene has long backed Trump and his claims of widespread election fraud that have been repeatedly dismissed in court, and rejected by his final Attorney General William Barr. In the two years since Trump began to espouse the claims, he has not put forward any evidence with which to substantiate them.

Those allegations motivated droves of Trump's supporters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in an attempt to prevent lawmakers from carrying out their constitutionally mandated duty of certifying election results.

Five people died as a result of the violence that day, which left the Capitol badly damaged. Four law enforcement officers died by suicide in the aftermath.

The attack marked the first time the US federal legislature had been occupied since the British torched it during the War of 1812.