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John,
According to the Huffington Post, at least 57 state and local elected Republican officials from 27 states attended the January 6 rally. The identified insurrectionists included:
Trump may have been Insurrectionist in Chief on January 6, but dozens of elected officials among the rioters must face the same 14th Amendment prohibitions that Trump is facing. Those already in office should be removed, like Otero County commissioner Couy Griffin, relieved of his duties by a New Mexico judge in 2022, and those seeking office should be barred.
Donald Trump violated his constitutional oath and forfeited his right to public office and so should all candidates and elected officials who illegally breached the Capitol. Demand they be removed from ballots across the country now.
State and local officials who attended the “Stop the Steal” rally included Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton. Following the attack on the Capitol, Mr. Paxton tweeted the lie that it was led, not by Trump supporters, but by Antifa protesters trying to make MAGA look bad.
California Republican Assembly chapter president Jorge Riley was charged by federal prosecutors for these actions he described in a video interview he gave on the Capitol steps:
“We broke windows, we went into the door, we pushed our way in, and then we just kept going further and further. We pushed our way to Nancy Pelosi’s office and then we were sitting in there yelling, ‘[expletive deleted] you, Nancy Pelosi!’”
Flagler County, Florida, Commissioner Joe Mullins chartered buses to take protesters to Washington for January 6. Several days before, he had given a radio interview in which he said “Maybe there are some liberals I’d like to see their heads cut off.” Mullins is still in office.
Regarding his own attendance at the rally, Canadian County, Oklahoma sheriff Chris West posted on Facebook, “I’m okay with using whatever means necessary to preserve America and save FREEDOM & LIBERTY.” When a fellow Oklahoman responded, “I want several in Congress in prison,” West stoked the violent fantasies, replying, “Or worse.”
And Natick, Massachusetts town council member Suzanne Ianni, arrested for breaching the Capitol, was photographed on her bus, thumbs up with members of the violent neo-fascist Proud Boys, who spearheaded much of the violence. They are also allies of her anti-LGBTQ+ group “Super Happy Fun America,” known for organizing “Straight Pride Marches” in Boston.
Demand all candidates and elected officials who illegally breached the Capitol are removed from office and denied the right to ever run for reelection now.
Jacob Chansley, better known as the “QAnon Shaman,” released to a halfway house after serving 27 months of his 41-month prison sentence, is just one of dozens of January 6 rioters now running for, or already elected to, public office.
In November, Chansley filed paperwork to run as the Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Congress in Arizona. Yes, the shirtless man who broke into the Capitol in a furry headdress with horns, carrying a bullhorn and a spear, and who left a threatening note on the dais for Vice President Mike Pence, is now seeking to re-enter the hallowed chamber as an elected member.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars insurrectionists from holding public office, but only those who have “taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States.” Yet the spirit of the 14th Amendment should apply more broadly to Chansley and over 1,200 defendants who have been charged in connection with the January 6 insurrection.
Every single January 6 insurrectionist must be held accountable and barred from holding any public office. Please add your name now!
Thank you for your vigilance against the vigilantes who seek to destroy our democracy.
- Amanda
Amanda Ford, Director
Democracy for America
Advocacy Fund
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