CPAC Panel Recasts January 6 Rioters as ‘The Real Heroes’ for ‘Putting Their Lives on the Line’ After Police Started ‘Attacking the People’

January 6 rioters who violently beat police officers and ransacked the U.S. Capitol were praised as “the real heroes” during a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday.

Right-wing radio host Sandy Rios, former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, and Gerri Perna, the aunt of Matthew Perna, a participant in the events of January 6 who tragically killed himself after being prosecuted, were the participants in the panel, and it was Rios who made the absurd assertion.

After Perna said the the Department of Justice ought to “pay for” its prosecution of various January 6 rioters, Rios concurred heartily.

“No argument, I think, from anyone in this audience unless it might be some members from the media. Gerri, that’s why we’re talking,” said Rios. She continued:

The injustices are breathtaking, and that’s why our country is in such turmoil and people are upset. And that the real heroes, I think, and it doesn’t mean no — let’s just say some of our real heroes were there on January the 6th, actually putting their lives on the line when they saw the police attacking the people. It’s a sordid story and I would recommend the Epoch Times‘ recent video on this just if you’re not sure about some of the details we can’t get into.

Rios went on to ask Perna if she was in contact with the families of other January 6 defendants.

Perna affirmed that she did and said that a number of others have reached out to her about considering committing suicide.

“They are pushing these people to the brink of insanity,” she argued.

The plight of January 6 defendants has become a cause celebre on the far right over the last few years. In remarks earlier this month, former President Donald Trump, on whose behalf the rioters stormed the Capitol Building blamed the riot on Nancy Pelosi and suggested that the rioters were not in the wrong by insisting that “there were no guns, there were no anything except they shot Ashli Babbitt.”