Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, said Sunday he worries that keeping the fencing around the U.S. Capitol is meant to send a message that Trump supporters “are all insurrectionists.”
“I think the fencing is remaining in place to send a signal, a narrative that 74 million Americans that voted for President Trump are dangerous to our democracy, they’re all insurrectionists,” said Mr. Johnson on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” “And that’s simply not the case.”
Frustration over the fencing is building, at least on the Republican side. A Friday letter from 42 House Republicans urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to “remove the barbed wire fencing surrounding the Capitol and send the National Guard troops home to their families.”
“Let us be clear. The events that happened on January 6 were horrific. Understandably, certain increased security measures following that date were implemented,” said the letter led by Rep. Ted Budd, North Carolina Republican. “But it is time for Congress and its representatives to stop hiding.”
The fencing was installed after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Mr. Johnson said he and Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, called for a “complete investigation to find out exactly what happened” with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, but that “a month has gone by and we still don’t know.”
“And yet we have these eight-foot-tall fences with concertina wire completely surrounding the Capitol,” Mr. Johnson said. “We have been told they’re going to be put in place since — until March, at least. Listen, the Capitol is the people’s house. It shouldn’t be barricaded. Unless there [are] some real threats that I’m not aware of, that they’re not telling us about, I think we ought to take that fencing down and return to as normal a position as possible.”
In his inaugural address, President Biden called for the defeat of “political extremism, white supremacy and domestic terrorism” without defining those terms, leading to concerns that Democrats are seeking to “paint Republicans and Trump supporters with a broad brush,” Mr. Johnson said.
“Well, I’m against all violent extremists, whether they come from the left side of the political spectrum or the right. I’m very consistent. I wish Democrats were equally consistent,” Mr. Johnson said. “But this is an attempt by Democrats to paint Republicans and Trump supporters with a broad brush, thinking that we’re all domestic terrorists, that we’re all insurrectionists, and that we all need to be monitored by a police state.”
He added, “That’s the direction we’re headed in. And I’m extremely concerned about it. We all should be.”
Sen. Johnson on what GOP can do to stop Democrats’ agenda https://t.co/60O63YRypB @SundayFutures @FoxNews @SenRonJohnson
— Maria Bartiromo (@MariaBartiromo) February 7, 2021
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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