Pro-Trump rally draws few protesters as US Capitol on high alert
- There were many more police on the scene than demonstrators, who numbered far fewer than the 700 that organisers of the Justice for J6 event expected
- Sporadic yelling matches breaking out between participants in the rally and counterprotesters
Police vastly outnumbered protesters around the US Capitol on Saturday at a sparsely attended rally by supporters of the people who breached the building on January 6, trying to overturn former president Donald Trump‘s election defeat.
About 100 to 200 protesters showed up, some carrying the flags of the right-wing group Three Percenters over their shoulders. It was far fewer than the 700 people organisers had expected and the thousands who brought mayhem to the Capitol on January 6.
Hundreds of officers patrolled the Capitol grounds and a black eight-foot-high (2.44-metre) fence which surrounded the white-domed building for about six months after the attack was reinstalled in anticipation of the event. One hundred National Guard troops were on standby.
As part of an effort by some of Trump‘s far-right supporters to rewrite the history of the deadly mob assault on the Capitol that was captured in graphic video, speaker after speaker insisted that hundreds of rioters arrested that day were “political prisoners”.
Prosecutors and legal experts say the cases are being handled properly.
