GOP frontrunner Hanks wants to lock up Bennet, McConnell for calling Jan. 6 a violent insurrection

U.S. Senate candidate and state Rep. Ron Hanks (R-Cañon City) criticized Minority Leader and U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), as well as U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), for calling the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol an insurrection.

Hanks made the comments while speaking at an election integrity event at a Colorado Springs church. Last weekend, Hanks was on an invite list for a mixer hosted by Eagle County Grassroots Conservatives at a private home in Eagle.

“But it was an honor to have gone out there [to D.C. on Jan. 6]. There are people in here that were at Jan. 6. Quick raise of hands. Thank you,” Hanks said in Colorado Springs. “Far from the insurrection that the Marxist media will call it and frankly, sitting senators — a Colorado sitting senator — have called it an insurrection. Which technically is a misdemeanor, but Mitch McConnell did it too so we’ll have to figure out how exactly we want to play this. Lock them up. There we go.”

Hanks is competing with six other Republicans for the opportunity to challenge Bennet in November.

Bennet and McConnell have both denounced the Capitol attack, calling it a “violent insurrection.”

Hanks is a QAnon and election-fraud conspiracy theorist. He attended the Capitol attack and crossed police barriers there. Last year, as a member of Colorado’s House of Representatives, Hanks made racist comments downplaying the Three/Fifths Compromise.

So far this year, Hanks has won three different straw polls at Republican Senate candidate forums and debates across the state.

Last month, Hanks was endorsed by Joe Oltmann, a prominent election fraud conspiracy theorist based in Colorado. Oltmann has said he wants to hang Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) and execute Republicans who did not share Oltmann’s belief that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent. 

On Wednesday, Hanks joined former Donald Trump attorney John Eastman in filing a lawsuit blocking unaffiliated voters in Colorado from voting in Republican primaries.

Editor’s note: This story first appeared on the Colorado Times Recorder.