Months after former President Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election prompted a mob of his extremist supporters to storm the United States Capitol, the House Oversight Committee held a hearing to learn more about the delayed response to the violence on January 6.
Republican committee members continued to dismiss the severity of the violence that day, with some insisting that the insurrectionists were simply "patriots" and others defending Ashli Babbitt, the conspiracy theorist who died while trying to infiltrate the House chamber at the height of the insurrection.
But few of these dismissals stood out more than Congressman Ralph Norman's (R-SC) who questioned whether the mob was made of Trump supporters at all.
Watch below.
Norman said:
"'A mob of Trump supporters breached the steps.' I don't know who did a poll that it's Trump supporters. You had the media saying the same thing ... I don't know who did the poll to say that they were Trump supporters."
Norman is right that there was no polling of the insurrectionists to determine their political leanings, but that's largely because that data was readily available.
Before and during the riots, the outside of the Capitol was a sea of MAGA caps, Trump flags, and other pro-Trump paraphernalia.
Cell phone data shows Trump supporters made their way to the Capitol following a nearby Trump rally, where he told them explicitly to march on the Capitol. Trump supporters livestreamed their invasion of the Capitol, and even bragged about it. After the hundreds of subsequent arrests, numerous people charged said they believed they were doing the right thing because of the former President's words.
People found Norman's claim absurd.
People soon reminded him what the unrest of that day looked like.
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