Capitol Rioter & Former Oath Keeper Testify at Jan. 6 Hearing That Trump Radicalized Extremists

Chilling live testimony at the seventh hearing of the January 6 House select committee hearing came from former Donald Trump supporters who detailed their own radicalization in response to Trump’s actions leading up to the deadly insurrection. “I think we need to quit mincing words and just talk about truths. And what it was going to be was an armed revolution. I mean, people died that day. Law enforcement officers died this day. There was a gallows set up in front of the Capitol. This could have been the spark that started a new civil war, and no one would have won there,” said Jason Van Tatenhove, former spokesperson for right-wing extremist conspiracy group the Oath Keepers. “It makes me mad,” said Stephen Ayres, a former Trump supporter from Ohio who pleaded guilty last month for illegally entering the Capitol on January 6. “I was hanging on every word he was saying. Everything he was putting out I was following it. If I was doing it, hundreds of thousands or millions of other people were doing it. Or maybe even still doing it.” Both men expressed regret for their actions.

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