WASHINGTON — In a new interview, Colorado Representative Ron Hanks admitted to crossing police lines during the insurrection on January 6th, saying he was “walking between the Capitol building and the police force.” He also repeated the debunked conspiracy that the insurrection was a “false flag” operation organized by antifa — a claim that doesn’t square with President Trump’s recent embrace of the insurrectionists. Republican leaders in Colorado have so far done nothing to condemn Hanks’s role in a deadly attack on American democracy.
“This new information only underscores that Ron Hanks has no place in public office,” said Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee President Jessica Post. “Republican leaders in Colorado and in Washington need to condemn him for his participation in one of the darkest days in American history. Hanks and many Republican elected officials like him have only grown more emboldened, spreading damaging conspiracy theories and doubling down on far-right extremism. Sadly, such stances have only become mainstream in today’s Republican Party.”
During the wide-ranging interview, Hanks also promoted a QAnon conspiracy movie about election fraud and again questioned the results of last November’s election. He also called for an audit of the vote in Colorado, despite a total lack of any evidence supporting his claims and President Biden’s commanding margin of victory in the state. Earlier this year, Hanks made headlines for joking about lynching on the floor of the legislature before launching a defense of the three-fifths compromise.
Ron Hanks is the third sitting Republican legislator who was recently discovered to have crossed police barricades in Washington on January 6th, after Pennsylvania Senator Doug Mastriano and Arizona Representative Mark Finchem.
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