RFK Jr. said that Jan. 6 ‘protestors carried no weapons.’ Evidence shows that's Pants on Fire!

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on April 5 espoused a common falsehood about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"I have not examined the evidence in detail, but reasonable people, including Trump opponents, tell me there is little evidence of a true insurrection," Kennedy said in his April 5 statement. "They observe that the protestors carried no weapons, had no plans or ability to seize the reins of government, and that (former President Donald) Trump himself had urged them to protest ‘peacefully.’"

Kennedy published the statement following a fundraising email earlier in the week that referred to Jan. 6, 2021, defendants as "activists" who had been "stripped of their Constitutional liberties." (PolitiFact did not see the fundraising email directly but multiple news outlets reported on it, including CNN and NBC.)

In July 2021, we fact-checked Trump who said "there were no guns whatsoever" at the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. We rated his statement False. 

Kennedy’s statement goes further than Trump, because he said protesters "carried no weapons." A weapon doesn’t have to be a gun. 

On April 5, soon after PolitiFact published this fact-check, we received a message from Kennedy’s campaign saying that he was retracting his statement.

"My understanding that none of the January 6 rioters who invaded the capitol were carrying firearms was incorrect," Kennedy said in a statement that he also posted on his campaign site.

About six months after the Capitol attack, PolitiFact reviewed the case files of approximately 430 defendants. We found several defendants who police say were found to have brought firearms with them. Some were charged with having firearms on Capitol grounds.

Court records in the cases of nearly 1,400 defendants now provide even more details about the defendants who carried weapons.

Marking 39 months since the attack, the U.S. Attorney’s Office on April 5 wrote that "approximately 493 defendants have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees, including approximately 129 individuals who have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer." (The office publishes a monthly update about the cases; the statement was not in response to Kennedy’s comments.)

A Justice Department spokesperson told PolitiFact that John Banuelos was the 10th person accused of bringing weapons to Washington, D.C., for the insurrection. He was charged in March 2024.

We searched Justice Department press releases and the federal government’s database of cases to find several examples of defendants who had weapons at the Capitol grounds Jan. 6:

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• Mark Mazza was ​​convicted of carrying two loaded guns on Capitol grounds and assaulting law enforcement officers. Mazza brought a Taurus revolver, loaded with three shotgun shells and two hollow point bullets to the Capitol. He admitted to law enforcement that he was also armed with a second firearm, a loaded .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol.  

• Guy Wesley Reffitt was found guilty by a jury in 2022 of five charges including entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a firearm.

• Christopher Michael Alberts was convicted of nine charges, including six felonies. He was found in possession of a firearm. Alberts arrived at the Capitol with a pocketknife and carried with him, in a holster, a 9-millimeter pistol loaded with 12 rounds of ammunition and an additional bullet in the chamber. Alberts also wore a separate holster containing an additional 12 rounds of ammunition.

• Jerod Thomas Bargar pleaded guilty to one felony count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon. Bargar entered onto the restricted Capitol grounds while illegally carrying a loaded, 9-millimeter semi-automatic pistol.

• Peter Francis Stager pleaded guilty to assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a deadly or dangerous weapon. "Stager watched as co-defendants attacked the police line and dragged a police officer, facedown and headfirst, out of the line and into the crowd of rioters," a U.S. Attorney’s Office press release stated. Once the others had dragged the officer into the crowd, Stager raised the flagpole that he was carrying and beat the downed police officer, striking him at least three times.

• Robert Sanford Jr., a retired firefighter, was sentenced for assaulting law enforcement officers with a dangerous weapon. He "threw a fire extinguisher at a group of U.S. Capitol Police officers, striking three of them in the head," a U.S. Attorney’s Office press release stated.

• Riley Kasper was sentenced for assaulting law enforcement officers. Kasper sprayed an aerosol canister of bear spray toward law enforcement officers. He "described the image of himself holding the can of bear spray against officers as making him look like a "badass," a press release stated.

Kennedy said that on Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol "protestors carried no weapons."

More than three years after the attack, we have more information than ever as to why this claim is wrong. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that as of April 5, there had been approximately 129 people charged with using deadly or dangerous weapons or causing serious bodily injury to an officer that day.

And we found numerous examples of convicted defendants who brought firearms or used other weapons. Soon after we published this fact-check, Kennedy retracted his statement, saying he was incorrect.

We rate the claim that on Jan. 6, 2021, "protestors carried no weapons" Pants on Fire!

RELATED: All of our fact-checks about Jan. 6

UPDATE, April 8, 2024: This story has been updated to reflect that following publication of this fact-check, the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaign on April 5 retracted Kennedy’s statement that "the protesters had no weapons." At PolitiFact, we do not change the rating of a fact-check when a candidate retracts an earlier statement, but we alert our readers about the development.