Crockett, a Democrat whose district includes Dallas, was one of two progressive freshmen members who went along as de facto chaperones. She reasoned that this way, her Republican colleagues couldn’t exaggerate the jail's conditions without getting called on it.
Appearing on Morning Joe ahead of Friday's visit, Crockett said many of her colleagues “want to have a conversation about how comfortable” the prisoners are.
“They want to have a conversation about whether or not their iPads are working or if they have enough time on their iPads. This is what I'm hearing,” she continued. “As someone who's been a public defender, let me tell you something: They know nothing about what bad conditions are.”
She also argued that such inmates have been coddled, even though some had attempted murder during the Capitol attack.
On Jan. 6, 2021, supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol and interrupted the certification of electoral ballots in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. The attack on the Capitol was a violent one, with rioters damaging property and threatening to hang then-Vice President Mike Pence.Today, I will visit the jail where insurrectionists are being held as a member of the Oversight committee to ensure that the Truth is told & not another revisionist alternative reality. As a former PD & civil rights lawyer, I’ve seen inhumane conditions.
— Jasmine Crockett (@JasmineForUS) March 24, 2023
Republican politicians initially were united in condemning the attack but have gradually changed their tune. Many prominent conservatives in Congress, like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have since tried to repaint the narrative surrounding the day’s events.
Now, Crockett is leading the charge to decry the “privilege” enjoyed by the Jan. 6 defendants.
Crockett went on to tell the Morning Joe hosts that many prisons in her home state don’t even have air conditioning. It's a problem that has led to inmates dying from overheating, she said.
As of December, just 28 of Texas’ prisons were fully air conditioned, out of 107. Temperatures often skyrocket as high as 110 degrees in these units, and the lack of AC mixed with the oppressive heat is believed to have led to 271 inmate deaths between 2001 and 2019.
Crockett also noted that most so-called Jan. 6-ers are white. The fact that there would be complaints that their prison accommodations “don't work for them, when Black and brown folks have been trying to have a real conversation around what prison accommodations should look like … is laughable,” she said."They're politicizing it in a way that helps no one but their own agenda." – Wendy Via, Global Project Against Hate and Extremism
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“So, I look forward to this visit and I look forward to reporting out on the accommodations and whether or not they are subpar,” Crockett continued.
Wendy Via, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told the Observer that likening the insurrectionists to “prisoners of war” is “outrageous.” The rioters disrupted a constitutional process and “undermined the very fabric of our democracy,” she said.
The GOP’s whitewashing of the prisoners' behavior is further politicizing a terribly violent act that shook the country’s foundation, she said. The idea that those incarcerated — some of whom pleaded guilty or have already been convicted — should be viewed in a special light infuriates her.
The way Via sees it, pro-Trump Republicans are attempting to rewrite history, which carries serious consequences.
“There's so many people who — even the more conservative folks or more centrist Republicans — they want to move on from this because it was such a dark period in our history, and will long be known as a dark period in our history,” she said. “And to try to convince the populace that it didn't actually happen, or it didn't happen the way that it did … it continues the polarization in our nation for those who believe that Trump didn’t lose the election.”
Via also mentioned Trump’s visit on Saturday to Waco, where 30 years ago a standoff between law enforcement and the Branch Davidian cult resulted in the deaths of 86 people. Waco is now symbolic to the anti-government movement, she said. Many believe that the former president’s rhetoric worked to inspire the Jan. 6 insurrection, and Via feared that his trip would “[create] a very dangerous situation.”
Painting the Jan. 6 rioters as political prisoners is “actively anti-government,” she continued. “It's questioning our very system, which, for those in the social justice world, we question it all the time, because it should be questioned,” she said. “But they're politicizing it in a way that helps no one but their own agenda.”
