Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says J6ers didn’t carry weapons. Here’s how wrong he is.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. issued a statement on Friday “to clarify his views” on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — after getting dinged for a fundraising email describing defendants as “activists” who were “stripped of their Constitutional liberties.”

But in doing so, the candidate only dug himself deeper into a hole full of whoppers, particularly the patently false claim that the rioters “carried no weapons.”

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“I have not examined the evidence in detail, but reasonable people, including Trump opponents, tell me there is little evidence of a true insurrection,” Kennedy said. “They observe that the protestors carried no weapons, had no plans or ability to seize the reins of government, and that Trump himself had urged them to protest ‘peacefully.’”

Kennedy’s statement about weapons is categorically false.

Extensive reporting by Raw Story and a slew of other media organizations, coupled with investigations by numerous government agencies and the U.S. House select committee on the January 6 attack, together provide overwhelming evidence of multiple J6ers carrying multiple kinds of deadly weapons, from handguns to swords to hatchets.

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In only the most recent of many examples, John Emanuel Banuelos was arrested last month and charged with discharging a firearm outside the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Guy Reffitt, the first Jan. 6 defendant to go to trial, is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for attempting to storm the Capitol while armed with a gun.

Christopher Alberts is likewise serving a seven-year sentence for charging at police with a wooden pallet while armed with a handgun.

Mark Mazza, another rioter, brought two firearms loaded with shotgun shells and hollow-point bullets to the Capitol, and lost one of them at the Capitol. He is serving a five-year sentence.

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The latest update on the Jan. 6 investigation from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia references 122 defendants charged with entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon and 129 individuals who are charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury while assaulting officers at the Capitol.

U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves reported during a press conference earlier this year that investigations found scores of rioters came to the Capitol armed.

“The evidence has established,” Graves said, “that the following weapons were present at the Capitol on the grounds: firearms, [pepper] spray, Tasers, edged weapons, including a sword, axes, hatchets and knives, makeshift weapons, including destroyed office furniture, baseball bats, a hockey stick, flagpoles and knuckle gloves, and finally police equipment, some of which they stole from officers, others they brought with them because they were law enforcement officers themselves.”

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And if one isn’t inclined to believe Graves, there are numerous videos and photographs taken during the Jan. 6 attack that clearly show rioters brandishing and using all manner of weapons.

Not only did the rioters bring weapons with them when they stormed the Capitol, they brought them to the Ellipse for the rally headlined earlier in the day by then-President Donald Trump, according to former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

Trump expressed anger that event security personnel weren’t letting people through magnetometers with weapons, Hutchinson testified under oath in 2022 before the now-defunct House Select January 6th Committee.

“I don’t f----g care that they have weapons,” Trump said, according to Hutchinson. “They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f-----g mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let my people in. Take the f-----g mags away.”

The Kennedy campaign did not respond immediately to a request for comment from Raw Story.

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