Remembering January 6, 2021.

​Five years ago America experienced the most serious assault on its constitutional order since the Civil War. On that day thousands of Donald Trump’s supporters had answered his call to come to Washington D.C. to protest the results of the presidential election which he claimed had been stolen from him. Fired up by Trump’s rhetoric, the protestors marched to the Capitol where the election was being certified. The protest soon turned violent, the Capitol police were overwhelmed, and the Capitol building was broken into sending members of Congress running for their lives. More than 150 police officers were injured that day and, in the days to follow several died from physical or mental trauma.  Millions of dollars in damage was done to our Capitol building and America’s sense of democratic values and the rule of law were shaken to the core. 

​Here is what I wrote just days after the Capitol riot:  The U.S. Capitol building was attacked by a mob of Donald Trump supporters to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden as the next President of the United States. The assault on the heart of our democracy was an insurrection, a violent uprising against an established government. These events did not erupt spontaneously. They have been brewing since the November 3rd election, fed by the lies and vitriol of a man who would not accept defeat.  In an act of sedition, President Donald Trump implored his supporters not to accept the results of the election and incited them by perpetrating the lie that the election was stolen from him. 
 
Just a short time before a joint session of Congress assembled to certify the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Donald Trump addressed his supporters near the White House at the “Save America” rally. Here are some of the president’s own words: “All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats, which is what they’ve done and what they are doing. We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about.”
 
In his hour and thirteen-minute speech to his followers, Trump laid out his grievances and a litany of lies about how the election was stolen. He implored Vice President Pence not to certify the election and told his followers to walk to the Capitol once his speech was over, with these words: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and count the electors who have been lawfully slated”. 

​Within two hours, Trump’s supporters had broken into the Capitol building, sending members of both chambers fleeing for safety, and desecrating the seat of America’s democracy. When the mayhem was over, at least two people were dead and dozens were injured. This was not a protest, it was an unprecedented assault on our democracy, and a glimpse at how a constitutionally formed government can fall. 

​Aftermath of January 6th: Donald Trump was widely condemned for his actions and inactions on January 6th even by leaders of his own party. Trump was impeached by the Democratic led House but was acquitted by the Republican majority in the Senate.
 
The House convened a select committee to investigate the Capitol riot. The committee’s final report was shelved and little action was taken. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the two Republicans on the committee, were censured by the Republican National Committee for participating in what Republicans viewed as a politically motivated persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in “legitimate political discourse”. What occurred at the Capitol on January 6th was anything but “legitimate political discourse”. Republican Senator Mitch McConnel said it best by calling what happened, “a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent a peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next”.
 
The Justice Department appointed special counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In recent congressional testimony Jack Smith stated that his team had found “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Trump had criminally conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
 
Trump’s role in the events of January 6th should have put the final nail in the coffin of his political career. But Trump never backed down from his “Big Lie” about the stolen election and won back the presidency in 2024. Along with his victory he regained presidential immunity and his federal indictments and the criminal investigations disappeared. 

​Whitewashing the History of January 6th: In one of his first official acts of his second term President Trump issued a “full, complete and unconditional pardon” to over 1500 individuals convicted of crimes related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. With the stroke of a pen (sharpie) Trump ended the largest and most complex investigation ever undertaken by the Justice Department.  The proclamation announcing the pardons states “This proclamation ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation”.  The Justice Department was quick to remove from its website the database detailing the criminal cases and convictions of the January 6th defendants.  
 
It has been said that “history is written by the victors”, and Trump is doing his damnedest to do just that. If those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, are innocent, so is Trump for sending them there. This feeds into the narrative that what happened at the Capitol that day was a legitimate protest against an election that was stolen from Donald Trump.
 
Soon after the pardons Speaker Mike Johnson announced that House Republicans would establish a new select subcommittee to counter the “false narratives” surrounding the Capitol riot. The committee was impaneled in September and is chaired by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.). Loudermilk dismissed the work of the original Jan. 6th committee, calling it “more politics than truth”. According to Loudermilk the goal of the new committee is to create a report that more accurately reflects the events surrounding January 6, 2021. In other words, the new report will reflect Donald Trump’s views of what happened and will be entered into the Congressional Record as such.

​Trump’s pardons of the January 6th criminals gave the green light to the Justice Department to begin purging its ranks of prosecutors and staffers who took part in the investigations and prosecutions of January 6th defendants.  Over the summer Attorney General Pam Bondi fired several more career prosecutors and staffers who took part in Jack Smith’s investigation into Donald Trump for election interference.
 
Today the White House unveiled its own take on January 6th with a new webpage titled  “January 6: A Date Which Will Live in Infamy-The White House”.  If you have any doubt about Trump’s efforts to rewrite the events of January 6th, here’s the evidence.  Don’t take my word for it, click on the link.

Our Job is to Never Forget the Truth: There are millions of people in our country that side with the RNC’s position and feel that the Democrats have blown the events of January 6th all out of proportion for political gain. To those who want to get a better perspective on the actual events, please watch the following documentary film put together by the New York Times: “Day of Rage: How Trump Supporters Took the U.S. Capitol”. The film makers synchronized and mapped out thousands of videos and police radio communications from the January 6th Capitol riot, providing the most complete picture to date of what happened and why. I found the documentary to be powerful, disturbing, and at times difficult to watch. It certainly didn’t leave me ambivalent. I challenge anyone who watches this film to characterize the events depicted as “legitimate political discourse”.
 
The rewriting of the events of January 6, 2021 started almost immediately and continue to this day. That is why it’s important to never forget the events leading up to the Capitol riot, the events of that day, and the whitewashing that has taken place ever since. 

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Thanks,
Armchair American