WASHINGTON, D.C., June 3, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — In a rousing speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) condemned the “the two-track justice system” being pursued by the Democrat majority in seeking to establish a January 6 Commission, singling out that day’s riots for special investigative attention while ignoring last summers’ countless Antifa and Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots which resulted in over $2 billion in damages and 25 deaths.
On May 19, the Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives voted to create a special commission for investigating the roughly four-hour afternoon riots in January, providing it with virtually unlimited authority to subpoena even the internal records, communications, and donor lists of conservative organizations with full access to all data held by any department of the Federal government, including the National Security Agency (NSA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Last Friday, the attempt to establish the commission failed in the Senate. “The final vote Friday was 54-35, but Republicans withheld the votes necessary to bring the bill up for debate,” NPR reported. “Just six GOP senators joined with the Democrats, leaving the measure short of the 60 votes needed to proceed.”
House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA) released a statement opposing the bill pointing out the significant double standard: how this initiative “ignores the political violence that has struck American cities (in 2020).”
Congresswoman Greene expanded on this aspect of the legislation in her speech.
“Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the two-track justice system here in the United States. If you are part of the Democrat-sponsored domestic terrorist organizations BLM and Antifa, you can burn down American cities for an entire year, get bailed out of jail, and face no investigation or commission from Congress,” she said.
“Meanwhile, if you’re a Trump supporter who happened to be at the Capitol on January 6, you face exorbitant bail, solitary confinement, abusive jail guards, and no due process. This is an outrage,” said the freshman Congresswoman.
Given the contrast between the concern of Congress for the roughly four-hour riots on January 6, and the complete lack of attention to hundreds of violent riots in cities across the nation last summer, Greene stated that Congress has revealed that they care much more about themselves than they do about American citizens.
“After all, we have witnessed American cities all over our country be victims to violent riots by domestic terrorists,” she said. “The people have endured this. Businesses have been destroyed, violence has happened, police officers, night after night, have been abused. Yet this institution [Congress] has been focused on itself,” by investigating only the events of January 6.
This is the case “even though there are many investigations already happening here through the Senate and the House committees,” she said. With regards to investigations by law enforcement agencies, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI, “there have already been over 445 people arrested … [and] there are also more than 100 to be arrested soon. There is justice happening for the riot here at the capitol on January 6.”
“Republicans and Democrats together are against the violence and the riot that happened here in the Capitol on January 6,” but according to Greene, these two parties “are not together on the violence that’s happened to the people all over this country throughout the past year.”
According to Greene, left-wing Antifa and BLM “domestic terrorists … did a horrific and jaw-dropping amount of damage to cities across America during 2020,” including 2,385 looting incidences, 624 arsons, 97 burned police vehicles, over 2,000 injured police officers, a death toll of 25 Americans, and bill of $2 billion.
She went on to describe the vandalism and arson of federal buildings in Guilford County, North Carolina, Nashville, Portland, Los Angeles, Oakland, Louisville, and Dakota City asking, “Why were those involved attacking and setting fire to” these federal buildings “not called ‘insurrectionists’?”
“Members of Congress are not demanding a commission to investigate the damages happening to the federal buildings in these cities. No one is being called ‘insurrectionist’ for the damage that is done to these federal buildings. As a matter of fact, most the time if you watch the news they're called ‘peaceful protesters.’ These are not peaceful protests. These are violent domestic acts of terror, and this is exactly how they should be viewed and this is how they should be handled,” Greene said.
“Riots caused an estimated $55 million in damages in Minneapolis alone,” she said, including to an estimated 700 buildings and 1,500 businesses which “were damaged, burned, or destroyed.”
“By the way, it’s these businesses and these business owners that pay the taxes that fund everything that we do here. These people should matter. Their businesses should matter. Why is there not a commission investigating this? Why doesn’t Congress care about these people and their businesses?” Green asked.
She covered the enormous costs of riots in Portland, New York, Wichita, and Denver, including millions of dollars to pay police overtime to try and manage these incidents. “Yet here, the 117th Congress has no interest in launching a commission to investigate, to stop, these incredibly organized and well-funded organizations of terror.”
With regards to the burdens on police officers across the nation, Greene emphasized that dealing with such a circumstance “didn’t just happen to them on one day, for part of the day. It happened to them night after night, day after day, continuously. In some cities for a short time, weeks, but in some cities months and months. And it still continues.
“The major cities’ chiefs association found that between May 25 and July 31, there were 8,700 protests nationwide. How many [were] there on January 6? One. Nearly 600 of those protests were declared riots with violence and criminal acts,” she said.
“Three quarters of law enforcement agencies reported officers harmed during the protests,” including over 2,000 injured officers in nine weeks alone. “Why don’t we hear about them over and over on the news? Does no one care about those police officers’ lives? Apparently not. This Congress obviously doesn’t.”
“Meanwhile BLM and Antifa domestic terrorists are bailed out and supported by our now Vice President Kamala Harris,” Greene stated, referring to a tweet sent out by Harris one week following the death of George Floyd.
Harris was encouraging her followers to donate to the “Minnesota Freedom Fund” which served to post bail for protestors arrested in that state allowing them to return to the riots.
“If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota” wrote Harris.
If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota. https://t.co/t8LXowKIbw
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) June 1, 2020
“Yet we know what was going on. These were not protests,” continued Greene. “These were violent riots. I’m sorry, you can’t stand in front of a city on fire and people fighting, and say it’s a ‘protest.’ It's a riot, and it’s not peaceful.”
The congresswoman from Georgia explained how Harris helped raise $38 million dollars for the “Minnesota Freedom Fund,” which bailed out 184 “domestic terrorist criminals” at the time. Those who were bailed out “include a woman who shot at the SWAT team, another woman who is accused of killing her own friend, and a convicted rapist.”
Highlighting the double standard, Greene asked, “Can you imagine if a Republican congresswoman or congressman, or a Republican senator, or a Republican president shared a bail bond link and said ‘bail out the protesters from January 6’? Can you imagine the result of that? It would be unreal.”
Yet “there has been no backlash, there [have] been no consequences, there has been no action taken” for “supporting domestic terrorists who are responsible for violence, crime and costing the innocent American people an exorbitant amount of money, stress, [while] ruining communities, ruining people’s livelihoods and tearing apart our country,” she said.
Of the 25 fatalities from these riots, Greene highlighted 8-year-old Sequoia Turner, who was killed by a stray bullet in Atlanta and retired St. Louis police captain David Dorn.
“Why does Congress not care about David Dorn? Why does Congress not care about Sequoia Turner? Despite all of this damage there is no investigation into domestic terrorism from Congress. We have no commission launched to investigate the funding of Antifa. There’s no investigation into the funding of BLM. There is no commission set forward for the past year of violent riots but all they care about is the commission for the one riot here on January 6.”
In contrast to the treatment of accused BLM and Antifa criminals who were bailed out, Greene stressed that those who have been accused and arrested as being part of the January 6 riots have “been abused behind bars. They’ve been denied due process rights. They are still being held in jail.”
“Michael Sherwin, an attorney for [the District of Colombia], bragged that they had rounded up 400 people who participated in the breach of the Capitol on January 6. He said he wanted to charge as many people as possible. What kind of justice system do we have if officials are eager to charge as many people as possible [for this incident], but they don’t care about Antifa domestic terrorists and they don't care about [prosecuting] the people in those riots?” she asked.
“The Biden administration has taken investigators who typically work on cases involving drug trafficking [and] child pornography and assigned them to calling relatives and even ex-girlfriends of the January 6 accused in an attempt to find them guilty. Please put them back on drug trafficking and child pornography,” she requested.
“One person accused faces seven years in prison for walking through the open doors of the Capitol, taking photos in the hallway and leaving without doing any harm. Even the mainstream media outlets have reported on D.C. jail guards cruelly beating Trump supporters. One man was beaten so badly he has a skull fracture and is now blind in one eye. You don’t hardly hear anything about that on the news.”
“Months after January 6, men and women are still being held in jail and they haven't seen their day in court. Justice should be served for January 6, but this Congress needs to care about the people of the United States who have not seen justice for the riots of the past year. This Congress is failing the American people. Not only are we a nation in nearly 30 trillion dollars in debt, but we have a Congress that couldn’t care less about law and order in the United States,” Greene concluded.
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