Senator Johnson Distorts Report on Violence in Defense of His Remarks on BLM, Antifa

Sen. Ron Johnson, as he predicted, got himself in trouble for saying he “never felt threatened” by those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, but he “might have been a little concerned” if they were “tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters.”

In response to critics who found his remarks to be racist, Johnson wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal — “I Won’t Be Silenced by the Left” — that distorted a report’s findings on last year’s demonstrations against racial injustice.

In his op-ed, Johnson cited the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project to “push back” at “leftists” who claim that last year’s protests were “mostly peaceful.” But the September Johnson cited found