U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson thanked his constituents Wednesday for years of support and talked about the significance of serving as chairman of the U.S. House committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“You give me courage every day. I’m here to do the right thing,” Thompson told a group of about 100 people at a meeting of the Greenwood Voters League Wednesday. The audience included local elected officials and several state lawmakers.
Thompson, a Democrat, has represented Mississippi’s Second Congressional District, which includes the Mississippi Delta, since 1993. He is running for reelection this year and faces one other candidate, Jerry Kerner, in the June 7 Democratic primary.
Kerner is described on his campaign’s website as a California native who has since lived in Mississippi for several years and started his own small business in Clinton three years ago.
The winner of the Democratic primary will face the winner of the Republican primary in the November general election.
Thompson touted his qualifications for reelection, highlighting the fact that he supported the COVID-19 stimulus checks and free COVID-19 vaccine doses that have been distributed to Americans. He also emphasized that all of his staffers all hail from his district.
Thompson thanked the Voters League for the continued opportunities to speak with his constituents. “Anybody with common sense who wants to get elected in this community has to come through the Voters League,” he said.
Regarding last year’s insurrection, the congressman lambasted claims that the rioters were anything but Donald Trump supporters attempting to stop Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.
“That was a terrible day,” he said. “They want you to believe what you saw with your own eyes didn’t happen. They want you to believe that it was Black Lives Matter people dressed up like Trump people breaking into the Capitol. They want you to believe it was Antifa, which is not even an organization. They’re trying to confuse us.
“My job, as chair of the committee, is to get to the truth,” he said. “We’ll start our hearings in June, and I promise you, when we finish with those eight hearings, Ray Charles can see the truth.”
At the committee’s first set of hearings, held last July, police officers who were on the scene during the insurrection, testified about their experiences. The committee has interviewed hundreds of people as well as issued subpoenas for testimony and records to get to the truth, Thompson said.
- Contact Gerard Edic at 581-7239 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com.
