Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey calls the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol a "hoax" in a newly released video reported on by Detroit Metro Times.
The 1 hour and 15 minute video was taped by a member of the Hillsdale County Republican Party and posted to YouTube Feb. 4, ahead of the local party's censure of Shirkey for supporting a ban on firearms at the state Capitol.
At some point, Metro Times reports, the conversation turns to the uprising in Washington.
“That wasn’t Trump’s people. That’s been a hoax from day one. That was all prearranged,” Shirkey, a Clarklake Republican, said of the riot. “It was arranged by somebody who was funding it. … It was all staged.”
Shirkey insinuated that even Sen. Mitch McConnell “was part of” a staged insurrection.
“I think they wanted to have a mess,” Shirkey said. “They would have had to recruit this other group of people.”
Shirkey also suggested a darker conspiracy but offered no evidence.
“I think there are people above elected officials,” Shirkey said. “There are puppeteers.”
Shirkey goes on to say the election could "very well" have been stolen from Trump, but that he thinks the former president lost Michigan and that some unproven claims of election fraud were conspiratorial.
