Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson is facing a backlash over comments he made on Thursday about Black Lives Matter and antifa that were deemed “racist” and “unacceptable”.
Johnson, a Republican, told a Wisconsin radio host that he was not concerned about his safety during the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill, which left five dead, but that he could be if the protesters were linked to these groups.
Johnson said he “never really felt threatened” because the protesters were largely “people who love this country, who really respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law”.
But Johnson told radio presenter Joe “Pags” Pagliarulo: “If the situation had reversed and President Donald Trump had won the election and these were thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters, I would have been concerned.”
More than 300 people have been charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol, and investigations are ongoing. Protesters who violated the Capitol on January 6 wounded dozens of Capitol police officers, who were greeted by an armed and often violent crowd trying to enter the Capitol building. Tubular bombs were placed in the headquarters of the RNC and DNC before the turmoil. The breach required members of the House and Senate, as well as former Vice President Mike Pence, to be evacuated from their respective chambers, and prompted the House of Representatives to submit an impeachment article against Trump, which was later acquitted by the Senate.
The Capitol violation resulted from a “Save America” rally in which Trump encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol, where Congress met to certify Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States.
Johnson’s comments have sparked a backlash from Democratic lawmakers and groups.
The American Bridge 21st Century Democratic group issued a statement urging Johnson to resign.
“Senator Johnson’s remarks are racist and unacceptable. There is nothing patriotic about invading the Capitol to try to overturn an election and murder elected officials,” says the statement. “Apparently, for Ron Johnson, simply being black is a greater offense than launching a violent insurrection. Ron Johnson is a disgrace to the United States Senate and the state of Wisconsin. He needs to step down immediately.”
Rep. Ted Lieu, a manager at Trump’s second impeachment trial tweeted in the senator: “I reviewed many of the videos and statements we submitted during the impeachment trial. The crowd murdered a police officer and injured 140 other policemen. They would have hurt you if they laid hands on you. That’s why the senators hid it that day . Remember? “
No one has been charged with connection to the death of Officer Brian Sicknick. Its cause of death remains unknown.
Johnson, in response to a request for comment from ABC News, cited data on the Black Lives Matter protests over the summer.
“Of the 7,750 protests last summer associated with the BLM and Antifa, 570 turned into violent unrest that killed 25 people and caused property damage from $ 1 to $ 2 billion,” said Johnson. “That’s why I would have been more concerned.”
Johnson’s office did not respond to a request for additional information about the source of the data cited by the senator, but some of Johnson’s reference information appears to have been taken from a study conducted by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a data collection , crisis analysis and mapping project cited by several major universities.
The study looked at 7,750 Black Lives Matter events in the context of 10,600 protests during the summer months and found that, of all these protests, 570 “involve protesters engaged in violence”.
“In more than 93% of all demonstrations linked to the movement, the demonstrators were not involved in violence or destructive activity,” the study found.
Sam Jones, senior communications manager at ACLED, told ABC News that Johnson’s statement “is not an accurate picture of our findings”.
“It was an overwhelmingly peaceful move,” said Jones.
Even when the Black Lives Matter events had violent results, Jones said the ACLED study could not explain who perpetrated the violence.
“In many of these cases, the police took a tough approach to stop the protests, leading to clashes with the protesters and escalating the event to violence,” said Jones. “In addition, in some cases, violent or destructive behavior may have arisen as a result of aggressive intervention by protesters or non-state actors such as militia groups, and demonstrations linked to the BLM have also been the target of dozens of attacks with cars crashing throughout the year . It would be necessary and misleading to frame all these events as ‘BLM riots’. “
Johnson is running for re-election in 2022. He has not yet publicly stated whether he intends to run for another term. If you do, your vulnerable chair will be a target for Democrats.
Johnson has made several comments in recent months, giving credence to unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and minimizing the attack on the Capitol.
During a February 23 hearing on Capitol security, Johnson read a report by a conspiracy theorist suggesting that the crowd was “jovial, friendly” and “serious”. Shortly after January 6, Johnson told Milwaukee ABC affiliate WISN: “That didn’t sound like an armed uprising to me. When you hear the word ‘armed’, don’t you think about firearms? Here are the questions I would have liked to ask, “How many firearms have been confiscated? How many shots have been fired?” “
Johnson was also among those who tried to help Trump by opposing the counting of electoral votes on January 6 and led a Senate investigation into Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
Pagliarulo came out in defense of Johnson in a tweet on Saturday.
“The left is freaking out with what @SenRonJohnson said in our interview yesterday. Some call him a racist and so do I,” he tweeted. “You can disagree with him if you want, but claim that racism is just weak.”
Alexander Mallin of ABC News contributed to this report.