Marjorie Taylor Greene Spends January 6 Attacking BLM

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) spent the third anniversary of the January 6 riot at the Capitol attacking the civil unrest during the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests.

In a series of posts shared on X, formerly Twitter, Greene hit out at BLM protesters and rioters under the guise that videos in the thread were from January 6.

Videos and photos of looting and fires engulfing buildings and vehicles were instead purportedly taken and shot during the 2020 civil unrest that swept across the U.S. following the murder of George Floyd.

On January 6, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building as Congress met to formalize the victory of then President-elect Joe Biden. The Republican had called his supporters to Washington D.C. to support his unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 election had somehow been stolen.

Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin after he was suspected of using a counterfeit $20 bill on May 25, 2020. His death triggered a wave of protests and civil unrest around the issue of police brutality towards Black people.

Newsweek has not been able to verify the origin of many of the videos shared in Greene's thread.

"Wait…that was also from the 'Summer of Love' BLM riots when they decided to burn down our nation's capital. Here's more images from D.C.," Greene said.

While Newsweek has not been able to verify the origin of many of the videos and photos shared on Greene's thread, it is true there were fires during protests in the nation's capital during the BLM protests in 2020.

Greene has staunchly defended the January 6 defendants and has previously compared their criminal prosecutions to her claims of a lack of action taken against BLM protesters.

According to an Associated Press tally shared on June 3, 2020, just days after George Floyd's murder, an estimated 9,300 people had been arrested in connection with protests over his killing.

In comparison, the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia said more than 1,265 defendants have been charged in connection with the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Approximately 718 individuals have pleaded guilty to a variety of federal charges.

Greene also directly hit out at President Joe Biden ,who denounced the riot at the Capitol and mentioned the arrests during his first campaign speech in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, on Friday.

She then included the heavily criticized "fiery but mostly peaceful" caption CNN ran while national correspondent Omar Jimenez reported from Kenosha, Wisconsin, as vehicles burned behind him during BLM protests.

"Patriotic pretrial J6 defendants are rotting away in jail, many being held in solitary confinement, and Joe Biden brags about it", Greene said.

"Meanwhile, most BLM rioters who caused billions of $'s (dollars) in damages and set our country on fire haven't spent a single day in jail."

"The media loves to propagandize the events of J6 to villainize peaceful Trump supporters. The same media who declared the BLM riot "firey but mostly peaceful," as Kenosha, WI burned during just one night of "protests."

Newsweek has contacted Greene's team and BLM for comment via email.

According to a recent Washington Post-University of Maryland Poll, January 6 remains a divisive issue among Americans with a quarter believing, without evidence, that FBI agents organized the riot.

Results found that 34 percent of Republicans and 44 percent of Americans who voted for Trump believed the FBI was involved in some way. In comparison, 30 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats held this view.

The poll was conducted between December 14 and 18 among a national sample of 1,024 American adults and has an error margin of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points for the full sample.