Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) asserted that the Capitol riot last week may not have happened had politicians taken a stronger stand against Black Lives Matter riots over the summer.
McClintock made the allegation during a House debate prior to the vote to impeach President Trump for the second time, when he slammed the Democrats’ impeachment article and said they should prepare to be held to the same standard of accountability they just set.
The California Republican said that Trump “was wrong to set such a confrontational tone in a politically tense situation” but reminded his colleagues that the president, prior to the Capitol riot, encouraged protesters to march to the Capitol to “peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard.”
“Every movement has a lunatic fringe. Suppressing free speech is not the answer. Holding rioters accountable for their actions is the answer, and we are,” McClintock said. “And if we’d prosecuted BLM and Antifa rioters with the same determination these last six months, this incident may not have happened at all.”
Later on in his speech, he warned Democrats and a handful of Republicans who voted for the impeachment article, which accused the president of inciting an insurrection, that they would be held to the same standard.
“Any member of this body gives an impassioned speech, and the lunatic fringe of their movement takes license from it, be prepared to answer for this new precedent that we established today,” McClintock continued. “Now, I could cite many provocative speeches made by Democrats that directly preceded violence this summer, but we’ve already had enough of that.”
"I cannot think of a more petty, vindictive and gratuitous act than to impeach an already defeated President a week before he is to leave office. President-elect Biden’s promise to heal the nation becomes a hollow mockery in the harsh reality of this unconstitutional act." pic.twitter.com/QpOaWNsPbH
— Tom McClintock (@RepMcClintock) January 13, 2021
On Tuesday, CNN anchors Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon said that making comparisons between the Capitol riot and the Black Lives Matter riots amounted to “whataboutism” and that the riots over the summer were based on “facts,” which separates them from the riot at the Capitol.
“I’m sick of people comparing. You can’t compare what happened this summer to what happened at the Capitol. It’s two different things,” Lemon said on Tuesday.
“One is built on people, on racial justice, on criminal justice, right, on reform, on police not beating up – or police treating people of color differently than they do whites. Okay? That is not a lie. Those are facts. Go look at them. What happened at the Capitol was built on a lie perpetrated by the president and the people who support him,” he added. “So, just on that one merit, if you want to call it, it’s not comparable. That things are not comparable. So they should not be doing it. And stop this whataboutism.”
Cuomo said that bringing up the Black Lives Matter riots in context with the Capitol riot is meant to distract and done by people who “do not care” that the Capitol was stormed on Jan. 6.
“The truth is, as soon as somebody says to you, Don, they are aware of what happened last week – ‘but this summer’ – as soon as the words come out of their mouth, they do not care about what happened last week,” Cuomo said.
Related: CNN Anchor: Everyone Who Voted For Trump Sided With ‘The Klan,’ ‘Nazis,’ Rioters