firearms so much as with other weapons, but hardly unarmed, and there WERE at least some firearms, too.

Republicans have sought to rewrite the harrowing events of January 6, repeatedly trying to whitewash the assault on the US Capitol despite copious footage showing mobs of Trump supporters ransacking Congress, assaulting journalists, threatening to kill Vice President Mike Pence, and viciously attacking scores of police officers with chemical spray, fire extinguishers, hockey sticks, and flagpoles.

“It was not an insurrection,” Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia declared at a House hearing in May, suggesting that most participants were engaged in “a normal tourist visit.”

“By and large it was peaceful protest,” said Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin after the May hearings.

This attempted political cover-up has hinged on another specific claim: that no one who stormed the Capitol had guns.

“This didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me,” Johnson said five weeks after the attack, adding, “When you think of armed, don’t you think of firearms?” During the May hearings, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona claimed “zero firearms” were found among suspects charged with breaching the Capitol. “There were no guns whatsoever,” former President Trump declared repeatedly during a Fox News interview in July.

Evidence of numerous firearms among January 6 perpetrators shows those claims to be false.

An investigation drawing on public video footage, congressional testimony, and documents from more than a dozen federal criminal cases reveals that various Trump supporters descended on DC that day armed for battle with guns and other potentially lethal weapons. At least four people arrested in connection with the insurrection are facing charges for carrying firearms on Capitol grounds. Additionally, at least 10 others carried knives or tasers, including two defendants who allegedly committed assaults with tasers, according to FBI and court documents.

Multiple others arrested downtown and in the vicinity of the Capitol had rifles, pistols, explosive materials, and large supplies of ammunition. And communications among numerous January 6 suspects detailed in court documents indicate that many of their fellow insurrectionists were armed with guns.