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A new New York Times report highlights three unapologetic GOP congressional candidates running across the country who were on the Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021: Derrick Van Orden (WI-03), J. R. Majewski (OH-09), and Sandy Smith (NC-01).
The report describes the desperate and “uneasy alliance” Republican leaders Kevin McCarthy and Tom Emmer have maintained with far-right MAGA Republicans as they throw in their lot with these extreme right-wing candidates in their craven quest for power.
Read more from the New York Times below:
New York Times: They Were at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Now They’re Running for Congress.
By Catie Edmondson
Sept. 2, 2022
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As rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Derrick Van Orden, a retired Navy SEAL, had a front-row seat to the mayhem, perching on the grounds beside a tall, intricately carved, sandstone lantern pier.
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J.R. Majewski, an Air Force veteran from Ohio, was also at the Capitol that day, alongside a live-streamer who frequently elevates the QAnon conspiracy theory. So was Sandy Smith, a self-described entrepreneur and farmer from North Carolina who attended former President Donald J. Trump’s speech at the Ellipse and then marched up Capitol Hill.
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“I still stand with President Trump and believe he won this election!” Ms. Smith wrote on Twitter the night of Jan. 6, 2021. She had posted that afternoon that she had come to Washington to “#FightForTrump.”
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Nearly two years after the deadly attack, which sent lawmakers and the vice president fleeing for their lives, people who were on hand for the riot are seeking to become members of the institution that the mob assaulted. They are running for Congress in competitive districts, in some cases with the support of Republican leaders.
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But their presence on the ballot is the latest sign of how the extreme beliefs that prompted the Capitol assault — which was inspired by Mr. Trump’s lies of a stolen election and fueled by a flood of disinformation — have entered the G.O.P. mainstream. And it underscores how Republican leaders whose lives were in peril on Jan. 6 are still elevating those voices in the hopes of taking control of the House.
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Mr. McCarthy’s support for Mr. Majewski reflects the Republican leader’s sometimes uneasy alliance with the more extreme elements of his party, which he has courted and empowered as part of his push to win the House, even as he has tried to keep them in check.
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The super PAC associated with Mr. McCarthy, for example, tried to quash Ms. Smith’s candidacy, pouring nearly $600,000 into negative ads about her. But when she prevailed in her primary, the House Republican campaign arm added her to its Young Guns program, which is intended to help up-and-coming candidates in competitive races.
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Mr. Majewski, who has frequently appeared on shows with a live-streamer who pushes a host of baseless far-right theories, went to the Capitol on Jan. 6 with a QAnon blogger. He said in an interview with a local radio station that he helped bring “60 or 70 people” to the Capitol that day.
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Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime political operative and Trump adviser, endorsed Ms. Smith because she was “the only candidate who has pushed for a full forensic audit of the 2020 election,” he said.
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In a fund-raising email sent four days after the Capitol riot, Ms. Smith confirmed that she had attended the “Stop the Steal” rally.
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“It was exhilarating to speak to people from all over the country, from all walks of life,” she wrote. “They just wanted to be heard and support their president — none were inciting violence.”
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