Republicans aren’t yet done concocting Jan. 6 conspiracy theories
Rep. Clay Higgins has earned a reputation as a far-right member with odd beliefs, especially about Jan. 6. Late last year, for example, the Louisiana Republican lent his support to the idea that the FBI used “ghost buses” as part of a secret plot to orchestrate the assault on the Capitol.
As a recent New York Times report summarized, “Even by a conspiracy theorist’s standards, the wild claims made by Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana, stand out.”
That said, the same article noted that the GOP congressman is still showing his creative side.
[In early April], in a lengthy podcast interview, he expounded at length on his belief — based, he said, on his own extensive investigation and evidence that only he has been able to see — that federal law enforcement officers entrapped Mr. Trump’s supporters into violently attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6. He was repeating a conspiracy theory that has been debunked repeatedly.
The Times added that Higgins also peddled the groundless claim “that federal agents posing as Trump supporters traveled to Washington on Jan. 6 and tricked Mr. Trump’s backers into carrying out mob violence.”
The Louisianan’s rhetoric was obviously bonkers, but his colleagues are going down a related path. Rep. Greg Murphy, for example, appeared on Newsmax this week with a new theory of his own.
To hear the North Carolina Republican tell it, the former secretary of the Army “slow-walked” the National Guard’s response to the pro-Trump riot, and “the thoughts are” that he wanted to pursue a position in the Biden administration. Evidently, according to the theory that Murphy presented to viewers, the former secretary of the Army allowed “more chaos to occur,” on purpose, with the apparent expectation that this would make him more appealing to the incoming Democratic administration.
The congressman added, “I don’t have first-hand knowledge of that,” though Murphy was apparently willing to share the claims with a national television audience.
Why does it matter that Republicans like Higgins and Murphy are peddling such bizarre claims? It’s notable in part because, even now, GOP members of Congress aren’t just clinging to Jan. 6 conspiracy theories, they’re also coming up with new ones.
But it’s also notable because Republican officials don’t appear to be especially embarrassed by any of this. The aforementioned New York Times report added, for example, “[F]ar from relegating Mr. Higgins to the fringe of their increasingly fractious conference, House Republicans have elevated him. They made him the chairman of the subcommittee overseeing border enforcement, and Speaker Mike Johnson named him one of 11 impeachment managers tasked with trying to remove the homeland security secretary from office.”
Similarly, Murphy was tapped to serve on the GOP’s hapless Jan. 6 investigation.
Those waiting for conservative Republicans to take a more responsible approach to the insurrectionist violence will apparently have to wait a while longer.
