Legislator: Rally not insurrection
State Rep. Kyle Biedermann, a Republican from Fredericksburg who attended the Trump rally outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, said Thursday that he does not believe the events that day, when demonstrators stormed the Capitol and five people were fatally injured, constitute an insurrection.
His comments came during a lengthy debate in the Texas House over the GOP priority elections bill that had stretched into the evening. Biedermann was questioning state Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, about an amendment she proposed that would have prevented anyone who participated in the Jan. 6 riot from being an assistant to a voter. The measure ultimately failed.
“The amendment is all about the insurrection that you’re claiming on Jan. 6, yet you were not there, you don’t know what happened,” Biedermann said. “All you do is listen to the liberal media. Is that correct? Where do you get your information?”
The former Texas Freedom Caucus member seemed to be trying to draw a distinction between those who attended the rally and those who illegally
barged inside the Capitol. His office did not respond to a request for comment.
“People that attended that rally and attended the Jan. 6 event, you’re calling them all insurrectionists?” he asked.
Zwiener said the amendment referred to people who “participated in or encouraged an act of insurrection against this state or federal government.”
Biedermann, who was captured on video standing and smiling at the Trump rally, has described the event as thousands of people who “peacefully marched on our nation’s Capitol to make our voices heard.”
Biedermann asked Zwiener if she was referring to the “400 people, maybe 600 (who) have been identified” during the riot and now face criminal charges.
More than 500 people have been charged in federal court, according to a tracker from the U.S. Justice Department. Texas, as well as Florida, are the top two states where arrests for the Capitol riot have taken place, with 56 and 55 defendants respectively.
Zwiener said she was unsure of the current number but knew that prosecutors continued to investigate. Biedermann then asked her several more specific questions about the events, such as how many police officers died and how many days that was after the riot.
“Rep. Biedermann, I have been on a game show,” Zwiener said. “I am not on one now, so I’m not going to draw up random facts.”
“You’re making up and exaggerating what happened at that event,” he said.
Zwiener asked Biedermann: “Do you believe that the events of Jan. 6 were an insurrection?”
“Of course not,” Biedermann said.