Fox News reports that a number of congressional Republicans are calling for Kyle Rittenhouse to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor Congress is capable of bestowing upon a civilian.
President Joe Biden and his Democratic friends are not happy about that idea.
The effort to award Rittenhouse the Congressional Gold Medal is being led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). This week, Greene introduced a bill calling for Rittenhouse to receive the prestigious award.
According to the New York Post, the language of Greene’s bill states that Rittenhouse should receive the Congressional Gold Medal for protecting the “community of Kenosha, Wisconsin, during a Black Lives Matter (BLM) riot.”
Background
Those familiar with Rittenhouse’s trial will know that the teen says that he went to Kenosha in August 2020 to help out his father’s community during the BLM riots that took place following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
It was during his stay that Rittenhouse tangled with violent, angry rioters, which ultimately resulted in Rittenhouse shooting three individuals, killing two of them and injuring one, in a clear act of self-defense.
The jury acquitted Rittenhouse after it became clear during the trial that the shootings were in self-defense. A particularly important moment was when the man Rittenhouse shot and injured admitted that he had pointed his own gun at Rittenhouse before the Illinois teenager shot him.
Rittenhouse has become a highly divisive figure, with Republicans generally supporting him, and Democrats attacking him. The Democratic narrative is that Rittenhouse is a “white supremacist” vigilante, while claiming his acquittal is the latest proof that the U.S. criminal justice system is racist — despite the fact that all three of the rioters he shot were white.
Republicans, however, have argued that the shootings were clearly in self-defense and that Rittenhouse was, accordingly, correctly acquitted.
Will it pass?
The answer is that, no, Greene’s bill seeking to award Rittenhouse the Congressional Gold Medal will probably not pass, at least during this session of Congress.
Such a bill as this one requires two-thirds of the members of both the U.S. Senate and House to co-sponsor the legislation in order for it to pass.
Considering that the Democrats control both chambers and the fact that they’re fairly unanimously against Rittenhouse, it is unlikely that Greene’s bill will get anywhere.
The post GOP lawmaker authors House bill to award Rittenhouse the Congressional Gold Medal first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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