Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson wrong to claim Jan. 6 was not an armed insurrection

The U.S. House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, has scheduled what could be its final public hearing for Oct. 13. 

It will be the committee’s first public session since the summer, when lawmakers presented the evidence they gathered in a series of televised hearings that attracted millions of viewers. A report is to be filed by the end of the year.

The earlier hearings, and the criminal charges brought against more than 900 protesters by the U.S. Justice Department, have made clear that the events of that day were part of a coordinated effort to prevent the lawful transfer of power to newly elected President Joe Biden. An insurrection.

The hearings have included video footage and photos of the attack, showing participants erecting gallows, deploying pepper spray, hurling a fire extinguisher, using baseball bats to smash windows and throwing flags like spears at police officers. Within a week of the attack, a dozen guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition were found. In other words, the crowd was armed.

Both points seem clear.

Not to U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who is locked in a tight re-election race against Democrat Mandela Barnes, Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor. Here was Johnson during an Oct. 4 appearance at the Rotary Club of Milwaukee as reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

"Now some of the protesters did teach us all how you can use flagpoles and that kind of stuff as weapons. But to call what happened on January 6 an armed insurrection, I just think is not accurate."

On that, he is plainly wrong.

Repeating a ridiculous claim

This is not the first time Johnson has made such a claim.

On Feb. 15, 2021, we looked at a similar claim from Johnson, who in an appearance on "The Jay Weber Show" on WISN radio said accounts of the Jan. 6, 2021, events were being exaggerated. 

"The fact of the matter is this didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me. I mean armed, when you hear armed, don’t you think of firearms?" Johnson said. "Here’s the questions I would have liked to ask. How many firearms were confiscated? How many shots were fired? I’m only aware of one, and I’ll defend that law enforcement officer for taking that shot."

Johnson made a nearly identical claim later that morning on "The Regular Joe Show."

At the time, we noted the definition of "armed" is broader than Johnson makes it out to be. Carrying a gun, of course, is armed. But so is carrying other weapons. 

When we checked the claim, just over a month after Jan. 6, NBC News had already reported that within a week after the attack a dozen guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition had been found on seven people arrested before and after the Capitol riot.

The New York Times had reviewed video that showed people using stolen police shields, sticks and crutches as weapons.

A man photographed with his feet on the desk of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was carrying a 950,000-volt stun gun walking stick.

In addition, reports said pipe bombs were found near the Capitol at Republican and Democratic party headquarters.

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Instagram posts

stated on December 16, 2024 in an Instagram post

Photo of a young man in a tie shows Wisconsin school shooter Natalie Rupnow.

We called the claim "ridiculous revisionist history" and rated it Pants on Fire. 

When asked for backup to the claim, Johnson’s spokesperson Alexa Henning in an email to PolitiFact Wisconsin said "this started with a deceptively edited video tweet from an NBC reporter" and that the senator was referring to how weapons were characterized in the 2020 riots that rocked many cities following the police killing of George Floyd versus what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. 

"He is in no way condoning this action," she said. "He’s commenting on the hypocrisy of the situation."

A video of the question and answer shows that was the framing of his response, but Johnson’s complaints about media coverage don’t change what he said or how he has continued to characterize the Jan. 6 events – as not an armed insurrection.

Since we last examined this claim, the picture has only become clearer.

Few arrests were made on Jan. 6, 2021, but more than 900 people have now been identified and charged, according to a database maintained by National Public Radio. The database contained the names of 908 people charged when last updated Oct. 10.

Law enforcement has arrested alleged rioters in nearly all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia. Charges include unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful entry, assaulting, resisting or impeding officers, civil disorder, disorderly conduct, destruction of government property and violent entry in a Capitol Building. 

"The Justice Department put the cases into three categories: those who conspired over days, weeks and even months to attack the Capitol; those who allegedly violently attacked police, often with the use of weapons;  and the remainder who breached the building as part of the mob, but did not commit other crimes," NPR reported. "Sixty defendants have been charged with conspiracy. At least 228 defendants have been charged with violence."

At least $2.5 million of damage was done to the Capitol.

As NPR also reported:  "About 140 law enforcement officers suffered injuries in the attack,  many at the hands of rioters wielding pepper spray, metal pipes and American flags fashioned into clubs." 

Four people in the crowd died Jan. 6, 2021, including U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, who was shot to death by Capitol Police as the crowd tried to breach the House chamber.

In the days and weeks after the insurrection, additional people died, according to The New York Times, including five law enforcement officers, one of whom, Brian D. Sicknick, had been attacked by the mob and died Jan. 7, 2021. 

On Oct. 6, Jeremy Bertino, 43, of Belmont, North Carolina, a former Proud Boys lieutenant, pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and has agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department against the group’s former chairman Henry "Enrique" Tarrio and four other Proud Boys leaders. They are scheduled for trial in December. 

According to The Washington Post, the Proud Boys members are accused of "plotting to oppose by force the presidential transition, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol."

In addition to the conspiracy charge, according to The Washington Post, Bertino also pleaded guilty to a charge of illegal possession of firearms as a former felon. Bertino faces up to 20 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and up to 10 years in prison for the firearms charge, the Justice Department said. No sentencing date was set. 

Meanwhile, several leaders of the far-right militia group Oath Keepers are currently on trial for seditious conspiracy, a rarely used Civil War era offense, in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

Johnson said "To call what happened on January 6 an armed insurrection, I just think is not accurate."

It’s Johnson’s claim — that it was not an armed insurrection — that is inaccurate.

There was plenty of evidence to rebut that claim when Johnson made it in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6, 2021. There is plenty more now.

It’s still false and ridiculous.

It’s still Pants on Fire!