Jacob Ogles
Rep. Matt Gaetz said when Republicans take control of the House, they should not disband the Jan. 6 committee. Instead, they should put controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in charge and turn the sights on blaming Democrats and the FBI.
The Panhandle Republican, who on Jan. 6 infamously blamed the Capitol riot on antifa protesters, now wants Congress to investigate whether FBI informants stoked violence that disrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Donald Trump. He appeared with Greene on Steve Bannon’s podcast to discuss Jan. 6.
The most consequential moment may have come when he asserted Greene should chair the Jan. 6 Committee next year.
“I wouldn’t disband it. I would take it over,” Gaetz said. “I would throw off the tyrants that are on that committee now. I would make Marjorie Taylor Greene the Chair. I would make Darren Beattie the staff director, and then we would get the truth in front of the American people.”
Beattie, a former Trump speechwriter, has leveled accusations that FBI informants were at the Jan. 6 protest instigating members of extremist groups.
Greene also appeared on an episode of Gaetz’s podcast Firebrand and endorsed using the committee to turn the investigation away from Trump and toward law enforcement and Democrats.
“I’m ready to rip the whole thing wide open and expose everything,” Greene said.
Gaetz has fed the theory the FBI played a role in pro-Trump demonstrators breaching the Capitol. He said on his own podcast he wants to subpoena an individual named Ray Epps, accused of being an FBI informant in the crowd, and pursue other theories making their way around the far right.
“Why is there no accountability for the very people who are on video dispassionately and professionally setting up a booby trap for people, a lot of whom didn’t even know they were breaking the law because barriers had been removed,” Gaetz said on Bannon’s podcast.
At one point, he employed the term blood libel, a longtime antisemitic attack accusing Jews of using the blood of non-Jewish children for rituals.
“The people all in this country know what is driving this, and that is the folks inside the beltway of Washington, D.C. — severely impacted with the pandemic of Potomac fever — believe that the way that American democracy ought to work is that they ought to get to make all the decisions,” Gaetz said.
“And instead of the voters picking the leaders, that the leaders and the elites and the bureaucratic class ought to be able to dictate the outcomes of elections. We don’t believe that, and we’re not going to allow them to lie about us, and we’re not going to allow this blood libel to exist as a consequence of the Jan. 6 narrative that they are putting forward.”
Of note, Gaetz was among those House members, including 12 Florida U.S. Representatives, who objected to certifying the votes in several states Biden won.
But Gaetz and Greene both stood by that on the podcast.
“We’re ashamed of nothing,” Gaetz said. “We are proud of the work we did on Jan. 6 to make legitimate arguments about election integrity.”
He said a press conference will be held Thursday, the one-year anniversary of the Capitol riot, to discuss the “truth” of what happened that day.
24 comments
Alex
January 6, 2022 at 2:16 pm
Two of the craziest people in Congress.
Marjorie “Jewish Space Lasers” Taylor Greene who even other Republicans say is insane, and Matt “I like little girls” Gaetz, buddy of DeDumbass.
Lisa
January 10, 2022 at 7:10 pm
De dum bass is running one of a handful of states that has kept people working and alive from the F’ing liberal commies like YOU!
PeterH
January 10, 2022 at 7:52 pm
Dear Lisa,
DeSantis’s unemployment IS ABOVE the national average!
Don’t Look Up
January 6, 2022 at 2:31 pm
Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor-Green, Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump….. grifters, conspiracy theorist and the antithesis of American Patriots!
Even the most moronic of today’s Republicans (and there are plenty of them to go around) will not advance a fact-less conspiracy investigation of the FBI!
The Republican attempted coup of January 6th will be remembered like September 11th. January 6th will FOREVER be remembered and recognized as an organized domestic terrorist attack on our Democracy. A coup ….organized by Donald Trump and a handful of unpatriotic irresponsible ignorant idiots.
James
January 8, 2022 at 7:06 am
Your comment reveals your ignorance and inability to see beyond your prejudice against The right.
True Americans have opened their eyes and now that there are other social media who do not “cancel” anyone who disagrees more people are coming to the truth.
So go ahead and spew your doctrine of hate, When Marxism takes over you’ll see just how wrong you all were/are!
S. Nelson
January 9, 2022 at 5:55 pm
Explain why you, Gaetz, Greene, or anybody else spouting this nonsense never seem to be calling for Barr and all of the other Trump DOJ officials, who were actually in charge during the riot, to be hauled in and questioned about all of this so called evidence? Garland was nowhere near the DOJ when it happened. These congressmen conveniently cooked up this story a year later, and are asking Garland about it, so idiots like you who lack critical thinking skills can participate in the lunacy. Why would the FBI need to keep a person on a list of people they are seeking to identify with help from the public after they have identified him? What is sinister about that? These are just some examples of common sense questions that anybody with half a brain would be asking themselves. It’s not hard to conjecture that a 60 year old man who has been involved with Oath Keepers for years, and doesn’t want to ruin his comfortable life or pay thoisands of dollars in legal fees, could easily be flipped and is now a snitch, in exchange for immunity, since it’s also public knowledge that numerous Oath Keepers have been arrested or are under investigation. Seeing that he was involved with the organization years before this event, he could be providing a lot more info besides what they were involved in on January 6rh, and is a much more valuable witness. If he was “undercover”, wouldn’t it be much more feasible to have him “arrested”, and be pretending to be on the side of the rioters, and on the inside as opposed to riding around his ranch on a golf cart? No wonder Trump said he loves the poorly educated!
PeterH
January 9, 2022 at 6:10 pm
EXCELLENT SUMMARY Nelson!
Lisa
January 10, 2022 at 7:14 pm
He’s there now you moron. You can’t call in Bill Barr if Trump isn’t in office.
PeterH
January 10, 2022 at 7:50 pm
Making stuff up again Lisa. Tell us why Barr can’t be compelled to testify with a subpoena. He’s a private US citizen. LOL
Lisa
January 10, 2022 at 7:12 pm
Give me a fucking break. You have a mental case in the White House and you want us to believe TRUMP was to blame for January 6th? Why don’t you ask your buddies Clinton and Obama who have way more at stake if Biden loses.
PeterH
January 10, 2022 at 9:24 pm
Blah blah blah. Biden won by 8 million votes because Americans will not stand for idiots like Gaetz, Green, DeSantis or Trump.
And we’ll vote for Biden again because unemployment is at 3.9% and the DOW is up five thousand points!
Walpurgis
January 12, 2022 at 4:54 pm
Please post again Lisa. This time, however, try to be rational, k?
PeterH
January 6, 2022 at 2:36 pm
More ignorance from Ron DeSantis….. Imagine ….. association with two of the House’s most despicable Republicans Green and Gaetz!
Dave
January 7, 2022 at 1:19 am
You left out a lot of information in your article, especially pertaining to Ray Epps and his involvement. You forgot to mention that Ray Epps on January 5 openly advocated for people to go into the capital. On January 6 again he was recorded telling a crowd of people to go into the capital. Epps was also video taped entering the capital grounds shortly after the fencing was breeched. On top of that he was #16 on the FBI’s list, only to be removed. The big question is why hasn’t Ray Epps been detained, and why hasn’t Ray Epps been charged? This report is little more than a biased smear and missing a lot of content.
Mike
January 7, 2022 at 5:07 pm
Your a fucking idiot
James
January 8, 2022 at 7:08 am
your looking in a mirror sir that f’n idiot you see is yourself
Lisa
January 10, 2022 at 7:16 pm
Don’t bother you can’t make those idiots who voted for the Inept 46 see anything! They drank Kool aid and will die at Biden’s hands. More people have died because of Biden and Corona in less than a year than in the entire time President Trump was in office!
PeterH
January 10, 2022 at 7:48 pm
More unvaccinated Republicans have died of Covid….there….I fixed it for you.
Steve Rogers
January 9, 2022 at 4:21 pm
When Someone Tells You To Jump Off a Cliff, do you jump? Everyone who went into the Capitol did it by choice, no one was forcing them, these are the consequences. Trump told them to storm the Capitol, why is he not as responseible as you say this Ray Epps is?
Lisa
January 10, 2022 at 7:17 pm
Steve, please show me where President Trump said in those exact words otherwise shut the hell up liar!
Jack
January 11, 2022 at 11:49 pm
Lisa, Trump spend months refusing to accept he lost the election, spouting self-serving lies which many Americans unfortunately swallowed until they actually believed that attempting to overturn a democratic election was a patriotic act. We need to hold the powerful accountable.
Jerry
January 8, 2022 at 1:00 pm
Why hasn’t Ray Epps been charged? Instead of flinging ad hominem, just answer that question.
Don’t Look Up
January 8, 2022 at 7:48 pm
Epps is the owner of the Knotty Barn, a wedding and event venue, in Queen Creek, Arizona. According to the Daily Mail, the 60-year-old man is also a retired U.S. Marine.
Epps is also a Trump supporter and appears to have long-running ties to the Oath Keepers, a far-right anti-government militia that formed shortly after the election of former President Barack Obama in 2008. Epps was listed as the president of the Arizona chapter of the Oath Keepers.
To this date Epps…. Through hundreds of recorded video hours ….. has not been seen in ANY FOOTAGE inside the Capitol.
So there’s your conspiracy theory Jerry.
Leonard King
January 12, 2022 at 7:46 pm
When the truth is told these liberal, queens, say it’s a conspiracy theory,. So what he was a part of an American loving anti antifa, blm, thug assholes, what we need is revolution against all you sissies that support the conduct of the democrat party, that’s trying to destroy the constitution of the United States of America,
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