A Republican candidate in the Arizona Senate race questioned the origins of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, contributing to conspiracies that the riot had been staged.
Blake Masters, a Republican endorsed by former President Donald Trump, had met with conservative activists at a Phoenix IHOP restaurant on March 30, where he was asked if he would support investigating U.S. intelligence operations to uncover the federal government’s “nefarious activities,” to which he replied, “absolutely,” according to a recording of the meeting obtained by CNN.
“Don’t we suspect that, like, one-third of the people outside of the Capitol complex on Jan. 6 were actual FBI agents hanging out,” Masters asked at the GrassRoots Tea Party Activists of Arizona event. “What did people know? And when did they know it? We got to get to the bottom of this.”
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The Arizona Senate candidate has attended several Trump rallies since Trump’s loss in the 2020 election and visited Trump’s Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, in May to watch a screening of Dinesh D’Souza’s election fraud documentary 2000 Mules. A campaign ad from November 2021 showed Masters stating, “I think Trump won in 2020.”
America’s most powerful institutions conspired to manipulate the 2020 election. Donald Trump should be president today. pic.twitter.com/zGKGsxHOmI
— Blake Masters (@bgmasters) November 9, 2021
Masters is one of many Republican candidates who have pushed Trump’s claim that the results of the 2020 election results were fraudulent, many of whom have been endorsed by the former president ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
The Jan. 6 hearings, set to begin airing on Thursday, will feature “unseen material documenting January 6th, receive witness testimony, preview additional hearings, and provide the American people a summary of its findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power,” with U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards and documentary filmmaker Nick Quested slated to testify, according to the Jan. 6 committee.
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Masters has not responded to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
