On Wednesday morning, Ken Paxton stood in front of a roaring crowd, reminding a sea of President Donald Trump’s supporters that the president “is a fighter” and his backers must be, too.
“We’re here. We will not quit fighting,” he said, slamming Republican officials in Georgia who have stood by President-elect Joe Biden’s victory there. “We are Texans, we are Americans, and we’re not quitting.”
But by the evening — after members of the crowd he had invited to Washington, D.C., stirred up with false claims about election fraud, resorted to violence, smashing windows and scaling walls to breach the nation’s Capitol in a mob that forced members of Congress to flee and left at least one woman dead — he had claimed they were not his ilk at all.
“These are not Trump supporters,” he falsely claimed on Twitter and Facebook, citing incorrect reports that the pro-Trump mob that invaded the Capitol had been infiltrated by liberal antifa activists, members of a loose anti-facist movement that opposes actions seen as “authoritarian, homophobic, racist or xenophobic.”
The untenable pivot provides an insight into a remarkable day in American history: Paxton, like other Republicans in Texas and across the nation, whipped up thousands of Trump supporters into a deluded frenzy, claiming falsely that the election had been stolen from them. When that frenzy reached its violent conclusion, he blamed someone else.
In an interview early Thursday with Fox News, Paxton disavowed the violent actors and said they should be prosecuted. But he also seemed resigned to the anger that fueled Wednesday’s events.
“There is a lot of frustration in this country from people who do think the election wasn't done appropriately…. It is going to create dissension in our country,” said Paxton, a co-chair of the Lawyers for Trump coalition. “And that’s just where we’re at.”