Democratic Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson claimed in a Saturday appearance on MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation” that if the Capitol police officer had not fired the shot that killed a Trump supporter during the riots Wednesday, then he and his colleagues would have been lynched.
“This is nothing but a race war that was about to be unleashed,” Johnson told host Al Sharpton. “Had it not been for the gunshot of the one shot fired by that plainclothes officer in the Speaker’s lobby right behind the House gallery … if those people had been able to get through, they would have had us who were in the gallery up on the third floor trapped.”
Johnson, alluding to the shooting of Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt as she tried to climb through a barricaded window near the gallery, went on to say that he and other members of Congress “who look like” him “would have been swinging from those railings.” (RELATED: Rep. Hank Johnson Compares Trump To Hitler And Doubles Down On It. CNN And MSNBC Ignore It)
Johnson was referencing the railings of the third floor gallery inside the House Chamber where some members were seated when the attack began, as well as the belief that the rioters included white nationalists.
The Capitol Building was stormed Wednesday by supporters of President Donald Trump after the “Save America” rally was held near the White House earlier in the day. At the rally, Trump called on his supporters to march on the Capitol and demand that Vice President Mike Pence and Congress overturn the Electoral College results. The House of Representatives and Senate were evacuated when the perimeter of the Capitol was breached and rioters made it to the entrances of both chambers.
“They could have had their pick of who they wanted to make an example of,” said Johnson, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. “And they came to the Capitol to do business. And the business that they were about was to lynch some people. They talk about Mike Pence, they talk about Nancy Pelosi, but you and I know, Reverend Al, that one of us would have been hanging with them.”