Sen Johnson, Ron Johnson, is facing adversity due to comments he made on Thursday about Black Lives Matter and antifa being seen as ‘racist’ and ‘unacceptable’.
Johnson, a Republican, told a Wisconsin Radio presenter he was not concerned about his safety during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, which left five dead, but that he may have been the protester at the groups are linked.
Johnson said he “never really felt 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 won the election and it was thousands of protesters from Black Lives Matter and antifa, I would have been worried.”
More than 300 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol attack, and investigations are ongoing. Protesters who violated the Capitol on January 6 injured dozens of Capitol police officers, who were met by an often violent and armed crowd who wanted to enter the Capitol building. Pipe bombs were placed at the RNC and DNC headquarters before the riot. The violation required members of the House and Senate, as well as former Vice President Mike Pence, to be evacuated from their respective chambers, and led to the House of Representatives bringing an indictment against Trump, which was later passed by the Senate was acquitted.
The Capitol outbreak stemmed from a “Save America” trek in which Trump encouraged supporters to march to Capitol Hill, where Congress is meeting to ratify Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States.
Johnson’s comments sparked a setback for Democratic lawmakers and groups.
The Democratic group American Bridge 21st Century has issued a statement calling on Johnson to resign.
“Senator Johnson’s remarks are racist and unacceptable. There is nothing patriotic about storming the Capitol to reverse an election and kill elected officials,” the statement said. “Obviously, this is a greater offense for Ron Johnson than to start a violent uprising. Ron Johnson is an embarrassment to the United States Senate and the state of Wisconsin. He must resign immediately.”
Rep. Ted Lieu, a manager in Trump’s second indictment tweeted at the senator: “I checked many of the videos and statements we submitted during the indictment. The mob killed a police officer and injured 140 other officers. They would have hurt you if they had caught you. “That’s why Senators hid it day. Do you remember?”
No one has been charged in connection with the death of Officer Brian Sicknick. His cause of death remains unknown.
Johnson was quoted in response to a request for comment from ABC News data on Black Lives Matter protests from over the summer.
“Out of 7,750 protests last summer related to BLM and Antifa, 570 turned into violent riots that killed 25 people and caused $ 1- $ 2 billion in property damage,” Johnson said. “That’s why I would have been more worried.”
Johnson’s office did not respond to a request for additional information about the source of the information quoted by the senator, but some of the information Johnson was referring to was obtained from a study conducted by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data. Project, a data collection, was done. analysis and crisis mapping project cited by several major universities.
The study did look at 7,750 Black Lives Matter movement events in the context of 10,600 protests during the summer months and found that 570 of all those protests involved protesters involving violence.
“In more than 93% of all demonstrations related to the movement, protesters did not participate in violence or destructive activities,” the study found.
Sam Jones, senior communications manager at ACLED, told ABC News that Johnson’s statement was “not an accurate account of our findings.”
“It was an overwhelmingly peaceful movement,” Jones said.
Even when Black Lives Matter events had violent outcomes, Jones said the ACLED study could not explain who committed the violence.
“In many of these cases, the police have taken a hard line to break the protests, causing clashes with protesters and escalating the event to violence,” Jones said. “In addition, violent or destructive behavior may have erupted in some cases as a result of aggressive intervention by counter-protesters or non-state actors such as militia groups, and BLM-linked demonstrations have also been targeted in dozens of car-bomb attacks throughout the year. describe these events as ‘BLM riots’. “
Johnson may 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 over the past few months, citing unfounded conspiracy theories and underestimating the Capitol attack.
During a Feb. 23 hearing that focused on Capitol security, Johnson read a report from a conspiracy theorist suggesting the crowd was “jovial, friendly” and “serious.” Shortly after Jan. 6, Johnson told Milwaukee ABC affiliate WISN, “It did not seem to me like an armed uprising. When you hear the word ‘armed,’ do you not think of firearms? Here are the questions I have. would have liked to ask, “How many firearms were confiscated? How many shots were fired?”
Johnson was also among those who tried to help Trump by objecting to the counting of elections on January 6 and led a Senate inquiry into Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
Pagliarulo came to Johnson’s defense in a tweet on Saturday.
“The left is afraid of what @SenRonJohnson said in our interview yesterday. Some call him a racist and so do I,” he tweeted. “You can not agree with him if you want to, but to claim that racism is just weak.”
ABC News’s Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.