Already Distorting Jan. 6, G.O.P. Now Concocts Entire Counternarrative

[Zorro]

In the Republicans’ disinformation campaign, the arrested Capitol rioters are political prisoners and Speaker Nancy Pelosi is to blame for the attack.

In the hours and days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, rattled Republican lawmakers knew exactly who was to blame: Donald J. Trump. Loyal allies began turning on him. Top Republicans vowed to make a full break from his divisive tactics and dishonesties. Some even discussed removing him from office.

By spring, however, after nearly 200 congressional Republicans had voted to clear Mr. Trump during a second impeachment proceeding, the conservative fringes of the party had already begun to rewrite history, describing the Capitol riot as a peaceful protest and comparing the invading mob to a “normal tourist visit,” as one congressman put it.

This past week, amid the emotional testimony of police officers at the first hearing of a House select committee, Republicans completed their journey through the looking-glass, spinning a new counternarrative of that deadly day. No longer content to absolve Mr. Trump, they concocted a version of events in which those accused of rioting were patriotic political prisoners and Speaker Nancy Pelosi was to blame for the violence.

Their new claims, some voiced from the highest levels of House Republican leadership, amount to a disinformation campaign being promulgated from the steps of the Capitol, aimed at giving cover to their party and intensifying the threats to political accountability.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/31/us/politics/jan-6-capitol-riot-pelosi.html

[pwb]

1. Yeah. No

I will believe my eyes and ears on this one pukes. Lying off camera is hard for them.

[bottomofthehill]

2. They are not political prisoners

They are domestic terrorists, that simple, no more and no less, domestic terrorists.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. It was PUTIN who first put the 'political prisoners' meme out there.

The KGBOP are just following their leader's example.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

4. They try to convince their base

No one else believes it.

[dalton99a]

5. Putin gave them the new narrative

He even pointed to the arrests of hundreds of suspects in the U.S. Capitol riot and the death of one rioter as proof that the U.S. also targets its citizens for their political opinions, just as Russia is accused of stifling dissent. (The FBI has arrested people for the violence inflicted on the seat of government in Washington, rather than for their political opinions.)

"We have a saying: 'Don't be mad at the mirror if you are ugly,'" he said. "It has nothing to do with you personally. But if somebody blames us for something, what I say is, why don't you look at yourselves? You will see yourselves in the mirror, not us."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putin-talks-hacking-navalny-capitol-riot-ahead-biden-summit-n1270640