Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson faces backlash over comments he made Thursday about Black Lives Matter and antifa that have been deemed “racist” and “unacceptable.”
Johnson, a Republican, told a Wisconsin radio program he was not concerned about his safety during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, which left five dead, but could have been if protesters had been linked. to these groups.
Johnson said he “never felt really threatened” because the protesters were largely “people who love this country, who truly respect law enforcement, will never do anything to break a law.”
But Johnson told radio presenter Joe “Pags” Pagliarulo, “If the tables had been turned and President Donald Trump had won the election and thousands of black and anti-life protesters had been worrying.”
More than 300 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol attack and investigations are ongoing. Protesters who raped the Capitol on Jan. 6 injured dozens of Capitol Police officers, who were found by an often violent, armed crowd trying to enter the Capitol building. Pipe bombs were placed at the RNC and DNC headquarters before the riot. The failure forced members of the House and Senate, as well as former Vice President Mike Pence, to be evacuated from their respective chambers, and led the House of Representatives to file a dismissal article against Trump, which later went be acquitted by the Senate.
The Capitol’s failure stemmed from a “Save America” rally in which Trump encouraged supporters to march on Capitol Hill, where Congress was meeting to certify Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States.
Johnson’s comments provoked a backlash from lawmakers and Democratic groups.
The Democratic group American Bridge 21st Century issued a statement asking Johnson to resign.
“Senator Johnson’s statements are racist and unacceptable. There is nothing patriotic about storming the Capitol to try to overturn elections and assassinate elected officials,” the statement said. “Apparently, for Ron Johnson, simply being black is a bigger offense than launching a violent insurgency. Ron Johnson is a disgrace to the U.S. Senate and the state of Wisconsin. He must resign immediately.”
Representative Ted Lieu, manager of Trump’s second impeachment trial he tweeted to the senator: “I reviewed many of the videos and statements we presented during the impeachment trial. The crowd killed a police officer and injured 140 other officers. They would have hurt you if they put their hands on you. That’s why the senators hid that day. Remember? “
No one has been charged in connection with the death of Officer Brian Sicknick. Its cause of death is unknown.
Johnson, in response to a request for comment from ABC News, cited data on Black Lives Matter protests over the summer.
“Of last summer’s 7,750 protests associated with BLM and Antifa, 570 turned into violent riots that killed 25 people and caused $ 1 billion to $ 2 billion in property damage,” Johnson said. “That’s why I would have worried more.”
Johnson’s office did not respond to a request for additional information on the source of the data cited by the senator, but some of the information regarding Johnson appears to have been extracted from a study conducted by Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a data collection, analysis and crisis mapping project cited by several major universities.
The study examined 7,750 Black Lives Matter movement events in the context of 10,600 protests during the summer months and found that of all those protests, 570 “involve protesters participating in violence.”
“In more than 93% of all demonstrations related to the movement, protesters have not participated in violence or destructive activity,” the study found.
Sam Jones, ACLED’s senior communications manager, told ABC News that Johnson’s statement “is not an accurate portrait of our findings.”
“It was an overwhelmingly peaceful move,” Jones said.
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, police took an intense approach to breaking up the protests, sparking clashes with protesters and turning the event into violence,” Jones said. “In addition, in some cases, violent or destructive behavior may have occurred as a result of aggressive intervention by counter-protesters or non-state actors such as militia groups, and BLM-linked demonstrations were also targeted. dozens of vehicle attacks. It would be accurate and misleading to frame all of these events as “BLM riots.”
Johnson is about to be re-elected in 2022. He has not yet publicly stated whether he intends to seek another term. If he does, his vulnerable seat will be a target for Democrats.
Johnson has made several comments in recent months giving credence to unfounded conspiracy theories and minimizing the Capitol attack.
During a Feb. 23 hearing focused on Capitol security, Johnson read an account by a conspiracy theorist who suggested the crowd was “jovial, kind,” and “serious.” Shortly after Jan. 6, Johnson told WISN, a Milwaukee ABC affiliate, “I didn’t think it was an armed insurrection. When you hear the word ‘armed,’ don’t you think it’s a firearm? Here are the questions I got.” would have liked to ask, ‘How many guns were confiscated? How many shots were fired?’ “
Johnson was also one of those who tried to help Trump by opposing the vote count on Jan. 6 and led a Senate investigation into Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
Pagliarulo came to Johnson’s defense in a tweet Saturday.
“The left is freaking out with what @SenRonJohnson said yesterday in our interview. Some also call him a racist and me,” he tweeted. “You can disagree with him if you want, but claim that racism is weak.”
Alexander Mallin of ABC News contributed to this report.