House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is working together to organize a trip to members of Congress to visit the defendant on January 6, who is being held in the Washington, DC, jail.
Supporters of former president Donald Trump has depicted those who remain in prison pending trial on charges related to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol as political prisoners being unfairly prosecuted. A mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol in a failed attempt to block the counting of the electoral votes confirming Joe Biden’s election as president.
Comer’s office on Thursday confirmed reports of the planned trip but declined to provide further updates. Political first reported the effort led by Greene, a member of the House Oversight Committee.
Greene’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Greene, Comer and Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., released a letter to Mayor Muriel Bowser Thursday night, requesting information and documentation about the “Jan. 6 prisoners.” They also asked Bowser to take steps that would allow a congressional delegation to visit the prison and let lawmakers interview inmates and staff.
A spokesman for the mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Some defendants held at the jail in connection with the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack have alleged that they are being held in inhumane conditions, including being “force fed” critical race theory and exposed to “anti-white messages” behind bars.
Greene, who boosted Trump’s false claims of election fraud and has argued in court that there is no evidence that she played a direct role in the Jan. 6 attack, visited the prison in November 2021. Greene’s office said that some defendants on Jan. 6 will be “housed in cruel and cramped conditions.” Her office also claimed that “reading material promoting the Nation of Islam and Critical Race Theory” was found in “several common areas” at the facility.
In a letter from December 2021 to Bowser, Greene was among 14 House Republicans who complained Jan. 6 that defendants were being “treated as subhuman” in prison.
“During a recent visit to the DC Jail, members of Congress were exposed to a two-tier justice system where those charged on January 6 were treated categorically differently than the rest of the prison population,” the letter reads. “Interviewees on January 6 reported being subjected to months of solitary confinement, verbal abuse (such as being called ‘white supremacists’), harassment, beatings by guards, denial of basic medical care, religious services, communion, nutritious food and access to lawyers.”
Last year, nearly three dozen January 6 defendants in prison asked to be transferred to the US prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The accused described the prison as having “medieval living standards” and “hellish conditions” with which it “insists on tormenting its traumatized guests.”
Those detained on January 6 also claimed in their complaint that they have been presented with critical race theory “propaganda” on tablets along with “re-education propaganda” and “racially biased information.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
