Kathy Barnette doesn’t deny going to the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a Fox News interview with Bret Baier

In a Fox News interview Monday night, Pennsylvania Republican Kathy Barnette was twice asked if she went to the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and twice she declined to clearly deny it.

Bret Baier asked the Senate candidate, whose election prospects have suddenly increased over the past two weeks, about photos, confirmed earlier in the day by NBC News, of her marching alongside members of the far-right group Proud Boys in Washington, DC, on May 6 . January. Barnette has admitted to attending the Stop the Steal rally that day but has declined to enter the Capitol. Her campaign also released a statement saying she had “no connection at all” to the Proud Boys.

“First,” Baier began, “did you go to the Capitol? And how do you talk about that day?”

Barnette didn’t respond with a denial, but said she was “not with” the Proud Boys.

“I was out there because I wanted to hear what the President had to say,” she said, before listing some of the rights protected by the First Amendment. “So, as a law-abiding American citizen, I had every right to go to a rally in support of my president. I did that there. We had a wonderful time. We have prayed. We listened to what the President had to say. We hung out. We went for walks and sang songs and then we got on our bus and drove off and came back home. And that is the beginning and the end of it.”

Barnette then made several absurd and unfounded allegations against “the media”. She claimed the photos of her on Jan. 6 were part of the press “that slandered my name and sowed disinformation to suppress my vote and steal this election from me.”

Baier again asked Barnette directly, “Just to clarify, you didn’t go to the Capitol that day?”

“I said I sang, I prayed, I listened to my President,” Barnette replied, giving a short laugh, “and left and then got on the bus and came home.”

Barnette rented buses to and from Washington, DC for participants in the Stop the Steal rally. A few weeks earlier, in a Facebook video, she urged Trump supporters to “fight, fight, fight” to forestall a Biden presidency. “This is our country,” she said. “This is not their country. This is our country.”