Matt Gaetz Calls For Republicans To Stage ‘Takeover’ Of January 6th Committee

On the anniversary of the January 6th attacks, Representative Matt Gaetz is calling for a takeover — this time, not a takeover of the country by an armed assault on the government, as was attempted and failed last year, but a takeover of the committee carrying out the investigation into that attack.

In a tweet teasing an episode of his podcast, Gatz shared three minutes of discussion with a guest. That guest is Darren Beattie — Trump appointee to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, who has been criticized by the Anti-Defamation League as a selection for any position of power, particularly one relating to Holocaust memorial preservation, as “someone who has consorted with racists,” due to incidents that actually resulted in his removal from previous positions.

Beattie and Gaetz discuss the conspiracy theory that the entire attack was plotted as an entrapment measure to

“There was certainly a time when I thought, just disband the darned thing! Let’s get to solving people’s actual problems!” Gaetz declares. “But after the most recent report from [right-wing conspiracy promoting website] RevolverDot News, I don’t think we can disband the January 6th Committee. I think we have to take over the January 6th Committee!”

He goes on to demand subpoenas, particularly for Ray Epps — an ex-marine who is the center of one of the many conspiracy stories around the attack. Politifact explains:

Epps, whose participation in the events at the Capitol became known shortly after Jan. 6, was seen in videos from Jan. 5 and 6 urging others to enter the Capitol “peacefully.” Revolver’s article attempts to build a case that Epps’ comments, his association with unindicted Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, and the fact he wasn’t arrested prove that Epps is an FBI informant and that the federal government incited the riot.

The conclusion relies largely on speculation. It does not confirm Epps to be an FBI informant.

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Still, Revolver‘s recent piece on the conspiracy spins this into a massive interconnecting web — and by ‘web’, I mean it’s full of holes. It relies on the reader agreeing with relabeling, such as “the Ray Epps Breach,” and asserting that it was a ‘booby trap’ and that attackers entering the Capitol grounds wearing body armor and carrying bear mace “would have no idea it was illegal to walk through the gate, or onto the lawn, or up to the Capitol steps,” and that participants in the attack “had no idea they had just crossed an invisible tripwire that would later subject them to federal prosecution for trespassing.”

Based on this flimsy speculation, Gaetz poses the need for a takeover of the January 6th Committee, and Beattie agrees, asserting that the current committee “is just a political clown show, an element of political theater that exists to obfuscate the truth.”

Referring to the attack as “the one-six setup,” Beattie claims it was intended to “demonize half the American people as de facto domestic terrorists,” though no one has been charged with terrorism for the attack, and the only people charged are those alleged to have been present and participating, not the Trump supporters across the country who merely agreed with it.