Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was criticized for praying with an actor playing a Capitol rioter on display in a cage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC.)
The bizarre moment was videotaped as the annual conference of prominent Republicans gathered to discuss the future of their party, which threw itself wholeheartedly into former President Donald Trump's lies about the integrity of the 2020 general election.
The exhibit of the Capitol rioter crying was devised by conservative influencer Brandon Straka, who participated in the January 6 insurrection, which took place after a mob of Trump's supporters attacked the United States Capitol on the false premise that the election had been stolen.
The scene at the exhibit was an emotional one. People wept as they listened to testimony of people who are still unrepentant about the attack despite being considered terrorists by the Department of Justice.
Among these people was Marjorie Taylor Greene, who went so far as to pray with the actor playing the rioter, as you can see in the photo below.
The scene exposed Greene to heavy criticism online, with many accusing her and Republicans of continuing to downplay the severity of an attack against the nation's democracy.
In June, Greene claimed ahead of a vote on a gun control measure that the committee and the federal government at large had "fragrantly" violated the rights of January 6 defendants who have been detained pre-trial, which made it sound as if these violations had a pleasant or sweet smell, a gaffe that did not go unnoticed.
Greene has made headlines in the past for visiting insurrectionists in jail, once telling Steve Bannon, former President Trump's ex-chief strategist, that the prisoners draw pictures of the American flag and sing the national anthem every evening while crying.
Greene has described the conditions in the jail as "deplorable" and claimed that unhoused people and Guantanamo Bay detainees enjoy better living conditions.
In November 2021, she said she had "never seen human suffering like I witnessed last night" after she was granted access to enter the D.C. Department of Corrections after months of trying.
