Matt Gaetz And Jim Jordan Begged Trump To Call Off Rioters, Because They Knew Damn Well Who Sent Them

And it sure as shit wasn't Nancy Pelosi.

BREAKING: Donald Trump commands Antifa. Must credit Politico.

 Well, kind of. 

According to Politico Playbook , it wasn't just Kevin McCarthy phoning up then President Trump on January 6 to beg him to call off the MAGA insurrectionists attacking congress and braying to hang Mike Pence and shoot Nancy Pelosi in the head. Reps. Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz got in on the action, too.

After a group of lawmakers were evacuatedfrom the House chamber to a safe room on Jan. 6, Jordan was joined by Rep. MATT GAETZ (R-Fla.) for a call during which they implored Trump to tell his supporters to stand down, per a source with knowledge of that call. The source declined to say how Trump responded to this request.

Let's take a wild ass guess that Hair Furor responded to Dumb and Dumber in approximately the same way he responded to the Minority Leader, i.e. by saying that he sided with the mob and hoped they'd succeed in their aims.

"Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are," Trump told McCarthy as his goons were sacking the Capitol, according to CNN .

Note here that these assholes all knew exactly who was attacking congress when it was going down on January 6. Republican politicians were in no doubt as to the identity of the insurrectionists then smearing feces on the walls of the Capitol, and they knew damn well who controlled the invaders. No one was pretending that it was the FBI, or leftwing provocateurs, or Sasquatch — these were Trump's militia, and no one was remotely confused about it.

And yet, just hours later, Gaetz bellied up to the microphone to spout nonsense about Antifa being the real rioters.

"I don't know if the reports are true," Gaetz began , before arguing that there was "pretty compelling evidence from a facial recognition company showing that some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters, they were masquerading as Trump supporters, and in fact were members of the violent terrorist group Antifa."

In fact, the Washington Times did put out an article, based on the flimsiest of sources and almost immediately retracted, suggesting that lawmakers had used facial recognition technology to identify antifascists in the crowd of rioters. It was never true, but that didn't stop other members of the treason caucus like Mo Brooks and Paul Gosar from continuing to spout it. And Gaetz never deleted the tweet linking to the retracted article and claiming "Facial recognition firm claims Antifa infiltrated Trump protesters who stormed Capitol," even after the story was retracted. Almost like he knew it was bullshit from the jump, and he just didn't care.

Politico reports that Jim Jordan's memory of the phone calls he made to his pal Donald from the safe room at the Capitol are a little hazy.

"Look, I definitely spoke to the president that day.I don't recall — I know it was more than once, I just don't recall the times," Jordan told our Olivia Beavers. He later said that "I'm sure" one of the Trump-involved calls took place in the safe room "because we were in that room forever." (For safety reasons, we are not disclosing the specific room where members were evacuated to, but that is the room Jordan is referencing.) Jordan would not get into the specifics of what he discussed with the president, though he said that like everyone, he wanted the National Guard to get involved.

Which is par for the course with Jim Jordan, who tends not to notice things.

As for Gaetz, he too conceded that he did speak to the president during the attack, but refused to disclose whether they were swapping recipes for zucchini bread or discussing the ongoing riot which had the members locked in a safe room.

"Congressman Gaetz speaks with President Trump regularly and doesn't disclose the substance of those discussions with the media," his spox told Politico.

Luckily for these amnesiacs, the January 6 Select Committee is ready to help jog their memories. CNN reports that the Committee sent preservation letters to the phone carriers of several members of congress, including Gaetz and Jordan, plus Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Mo Brooks, Madison Cawthorn, Louie Gohmert, Jody Hice, and Scott Perry. Of this motley crew, Brooks and Cawthorn spoke at the "Stop the Steal" rally on January 6 before Trump took the podium; the rest have connections to the rioters, or, like Perry, appear to have tried to coordinate with the White House to have the Justice Department intervene in the election certification.

To which Your Wonkette says, GET ON IT, please and thank you. We're barely more than a year out from the midterms, and Republicans are going to torpedo this thing so fast if Kevin McCarthy gets his hands back on that speakers' gavel. There is no time to waste!

[ Politico / Tampa Bay Times / CNN / WaPo ]

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