January 6, five years on: sustained effort by Trump to rewrite history

Five years after the deadly attackon the US Capitol, Donald Trump and other Republicans have engaged in a near-complete effort to rewrite the history of the day and erase it from the collective American memory.

On his first day in office, Trump pardoned anyone involved in the attack, a move that affected some 1,500 people. His administration has paid $5m to settle a wrongful death lawsuit with the family of Ashli Babbitt, a rioter killed by a Capitol police officer as she attempted to breach doors near the House floor. Hundreds of other rioters are also seeking millions of dollars in compensation.

“The pardons issued last January sent a clear message to the American people: political allegiance now matters more than criminal conduct. But over the past year, we’ve also seen a sustained effort to rewrite the facts of January 6, as if the historical record could be negotiated away or erased,” said Gregory Rosen, who led the justice department unit that prosecuted January 6 cases.

“But Americans remember that day for a simple reason – we watched it happen. And as long as we remember what it was – unadulterated mob violence – we can speak honestly about what it means for our democracy and our future.”

Ed Martin, an attorney who represented January 6 defendants, now occupies a powerful position in the justice department, where he has led the effort to exact retribution on Trump’s rivals. One of the people working with him is Jared Wise, who referred to police officers as “gestapo” and “Nazis” on January 6 and said “Kill ’em! Kill ’em! Kill ’em!” when violence broke out, according to an FBI affidavit. Charges against Wise were dropped when Trump issued his pardon.

The justice department has demoted and fired career attorneys who worked on January 6 cases. Republicans have even refused to install a legally mandated plaque at the US Capitol building honoring those who defended the Capitol on January 6.

“The plaque matters because January 6 matters,” said Brendan Ballou, a former January 6 prosecutor who is representing two police officers who defended the Capitol in a lawsuit seeking to force the installation of the plaque. “If the president and his allies manage to erase the history of that day – or worse yet, convince people that the riot was legitimate political discourse – they will make any future attack on our democracy permissible. So we have to memorialize January 6 so that it never happens again.”

The effort to rewrite January 6 has gone hand-in-hand with Trump’s stunning political comeback. After January 6, Trump faced one of his most politically vulnerable moments. Having lost the election, the president was somewhat of a pariah in his party and Americans blamed him for the attack. After the US House of Representatives – including 10 Republicans – voted to impeach him, the Senate voted to acquit him. Seven Republicans voted in favor of a conviction.

Mitch McConnell, then the Senate majority leader, and other Republicans rallied around the idea that a former president could not be impeached. The acquittal gave Trump a critical breath of oxygen to begin a resurrection that would lead him back to the White House four years later. Many of the Republicans who voted in favor of impeachment are no longer in Congress.

There were other critical decisions on the way. Some believe US attorney general Merrick Garland may have moved too slowly in appointing a special counsel, Jack Smith, to investigate whether Trump committed a crime in trying to overturn the election. Smith’s sweeping criminal case against Trump and allies was dropped after Trump won the election. Trump was also given critical lifelines by the US supreme court, which ruled that his conduct on January 6 did not disqualify him from the presidency under the 14th amendment and that official acts of the presidency could not be criminally prosecuted.

Smith hasn’t gone away, however. He told lawmakers last month that the insurrection attempt at the Capitol “does not happen” without Trump.