The stakes of the race are very clear for MAGA Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). In an Election Day message to her followers on the social media platform Telegram Tuesday afternoon, Greene encouraged them to vote for former President Donald Trump so he might pardon people who were charged with storming the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.
“January 6th was not an insurrection and agent provocateurs that fueled the protest,” Greene wrote, kicking off the message with apparent typos.
“Most J6’ers were nonviolent and just walked in the Capitol,” she added. “Vote Trump so we can get them pardoned!”
As of August, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, over 1,400 people have been charged for crimes related to the attack on the Capitol, which took place as Trump supporters converged on the building to protest the certification of Trump’s loss in the 2020 election. About 140 police officers who were guarding the Capitol that day were injured by the mob. Despite this, many of the participants in the violence have become a cause celebre for far-right politicians and Trump has expressed interest in pardoning them.
Greene has been a vocal advocate for some of the January 6 defendants, including participating in a delegation of House Republicans who visited a group of them who were being held in the D.C. jail. She began her Election Day message by sharing a social media post from an account purportedly belonging to a married couple, Tara Stottlemyer and Dale Jeremiah Shalvey, who were sentenced on felony charges related to the attack. The post described how Stottlemeyer and her husband had been separated from their young daughter during their prison sentences, which it blamed on the “Kamala DOJ.” Noting that Stottlemeyer could not vote as a result of her conviction, it encouraged others to support Trump and suggested he might free people who were incarcerated for taking part in the violence.
“Please vote to send home the J6 mom’s, dad’s, grandma’s and grandpa’s,” the post said.
According to federal prosecutors, Stottlemeyer and Shalvey were among the first people to breach the barricades at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Shalvey was convicted of having assaulted members of law enforcement during the breach, “throwing an object that hit an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department.” The pair subsequently broke into the Senate chamber and rifled through senators’ desks. Stottlemeyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Greene, who described the couple’s plight as “heartbreaking,” was among the Republican members of Congress who were involved in protests against Trump’s loss including one that was staged outside the Capitol on Jan. 6. She also was one of the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the election results.
Greene began promoting baseless conspiracy theories that leftists in disguise were behind the violence as the attack unfolded. Her typo-filled Election Day message blaming the attack on “agent provocateurs” seems like an extension of that conspiracy theory. There is no evidence for either variation of the claim and Greene did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening.
