NYT: Republicans Are “Elevating” Crazy Rioter Denier

The New York Times reports:

Even by a conspiracy theorist’s standards, the wild claims made by Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana, stand out. The hard-right congressman, now in his fourth term in the House, has said that “ghost buses” took agent provocateurs to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to instigate the riot. He has claimed that the federal government is waging a “civil war” against Texas.

But far from relegating Mr. Higgins to the fringe of their increasingly fractious conference, House Republicans have elevated him. This week, in a lengthy podcast interview, he expounded at length on his belief — based, he said, on his own extensive investigation and evidence that only he has been able to see — that federal law enforcement officers entrapped Mr. Trump’s supporters into violently attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Over the course of a two-hour interview on the “Implicit Bias” podcast, Mr. Higgins, wearing a shirt emblazoned with the logo of the Three Percenters, a right-wing antigovernment militia, repeated the lie that the 2020 election was fraudulent. He laid out an outlandish story that tied the rise of the coronavirus pandemic to what he said was a plot by the government to infiltrate pro-Trump online forums and urge members to engage in “riotous” behavior, as he put it.

Read the full article.

“Even by a conspiracy theorist’s standards, the wild claims made by Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana, stand out.”@lukebroadwater and @alanfeuer: https://t.co/IIdoaOkTTq

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) April 4, 2024

Rep. Clay Higgins claims that groups like the Proud Boys, Oathkeepers and others who were at the Capitol on J6 were persuaded and incited to commit acts of violence by undercover FBI agents who talked them into it on online forums and entrapped them. pic.twitter.com/BbpjIJiYsc

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 2, 2024