Reminders of Jan. 6 attack fade in the Capitol as Trump retakes power

Insurrectionists loyal to U.S. President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

WASHINGTON -

Inside the Capitol, reminders of the violence are increasingly hard to find.

Scars on the walls have been repaired. Windows and doors broken by the rioters have been replaced. And there is no plaque, display or remembrance of any kind.

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Lawmakers rarely mention the attack, and many Republicans try to downplay it, echoing President-elect Donald Trump’s claims that the carnage of that day is overblown and that the rioters are victims.

In some ways, it’s like the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, that shook the foundations of American democracy, never happened.

“It’s been erased,” said Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt. “Winners write history and Trump won. And his version is that it was a peaceful gathering. Obviously completely untrue.”

If Trump pardons rioters, as he has said he will do after taking office Jan. 20, that would be “putting an exclamation point on his version of what happened,” Welch said.

Some of the 1,250 defendants convicted of crimes after Jan. 6 called for the deaths of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Mike Pence, who was Trump's vice president, as the mob violently overran police and breached the building. Some carried weapons, zip ties, chemical irritants, Confederate flags as they ransacked the Capitol and hunted for lawmakers. They sought to stop the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s win over Trump, echoing the Republican incumbent's false claims that the election was stolen.

But the disruption was only temporary. Congress resumed work that evening and completed its constitutional role.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges after Jan. 6, said “it was a very, very dark time.” Some lawmakers, she said, "do want to really put that behind us.”

There are different reasons for that, however.

Former Republican Sen. Mike Braun, a frequent Trump ally who left Congress this year and was elected Indiana’s governor, said many in the party think the Justice Department “was weaponized disproportionately against” some rioters. He said many lawmakers who were in the Capitol on Jan. 6 want as much distance as possible between then and now.

“I think all of us remember it,” Braun said. But, he added, "If you’re starting to put plaques up, it looks like it even further emphasizes the divide on the issue. And maybe the biggest remedy is just to keep moving forward.”

The plaque that never happened

Congress passed a law in March 2022 to require “an honorific plaque listing the names of all of the officers of the United States Capitol Police, the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies and protective entities who responded to the violence that occurred at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

The Architect of the Capitol was ordered to obtain the plaque within a year and permanently place it on the Capitol’s western front, where the worst of the fighting took place.

But almost three years later, there is no plaque. It's unclear why or who is responsible for it. A spokeswoman for the Architect of the Capitol referred questions to the House Sergeant at Arms, who did not respond to requests for information.

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Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer of New York and then-Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky signed off on the plaque, according to a Senate leadership aide who was familiar with the process but was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York has also been supportive. A spokesman for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., did not respond to requests for comment.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who led the House Administration Committee when the law was enacted, wrote Johnson in May to ask why the plaque hadn’t been installed. “If there is a reason for the delay, I look forward to any information you can share to that end and what is being done to address it,” Lofgren said.

She never heard back.

“It’s not just the plaque, although it does mean something to the officers who were there, but the fact that no one cares about them enough to comply with the law and acknowledge the sacrifice that they made for us and for our country,” Lofgren said. “That service to their country, it’s been disrespected.”

New York Rep. Joe Morelle, now the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, said refusing to display the plaque is part of an effort to “deny Jan. 6 happened and the harm it caused to the U.S. Capitol Police force.”

The officers who were there

Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, who fought the rioters and was captured on video screaming as they crushed him in a doorway that led to the inauguration stage, said it’s “incredibly offensive” that the plaque hasn’t been installed.

“It’s an incredibly simple thing, but it can mean a lot to so many who fought that day to defend democracy, defend Congress, the vice president and staffers,” he said. He said Jan. 6 has become a political issue. “It shouldn’t be,” he said.

Hodges said he expects to be working on Inauguration Day, one of thousands of police officers who will be protecting the president and the city on Jan. 20.

Former Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, who retired because of his injuries from fighting rioters near the west front tunnel, said he lost “my career, my health" and even some friends and family in the aftermath of the attack. He and Hodges have been among the few in law enforcement to speak out publicly about their experience.

“Looking back, it’s like it was all for nothing,” said Gonell. “It’s a betrayal.”

He said he wishes the plaque was up on the west front so Trump could see it before he steps on to the inauguration stage in a few weeks.

Trump "could read the names of the officers right before he walks out,” Gonell said. “So he could know that his actions had consequences.”

Shifting Republican narrative

In the days after the siege of the Capitol, Republican condemnation was near-universal.

“Count me out,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of Trump’s top allies, said the night of Jan. 6. Then-House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California said a week later that Trump “bears responsibility” for the attack.

But McCarthy soon made amends, traveling within weeks to Florida to meet Trump. It was a fateful decision, kicking off Trump’s slow return to power. When Trump returned to Capitol Hill last year during his campaign, Republican lawmakers not only met with him, but they also gave him standing ovations.

Over that time, Republican attitudes toward the Jan. 6 attack have shifted. GOP lawmakers have condemned the work of the Democratic-led committee that investigated the riot and fiercely contested its findings. Some Republicans have echoed Trump’s words that the imprisoned rioters are “hostages” who may be worthy of pardons.

Still, the issue may end up being a tricky one for Trump, who has promised pardons on “Day 1.” It’s unclear how many people he intends to pardon or if the most violent offenders would be included.

“If they physically attacked police officers, I don’t think they deserve to be pardoned,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., one of Trump’s closest allies, said in an CNN interview. “I think they should serve their time.”

'Confidence in history'

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said there are legacies of the attack, even without a plaque hanging on a wall — such as increased security at this year’s certification and Biden’s invitation to Trump to come to the Oval Office after the election, a return to the peaceful transition of power.

“You don’t think people were thinking in the back of their minds, that was different than Jan. 6?” she said. “So it does play out, it is important.”

Congress has updated the Electoral Count Act, the arcane law that governs the certification of a presidential election, to make it harder for members of Congress to object to the results.

Still, with Trump in power again and many Republicans backing his version of events, Democrats said they worry that a false narrative of Jan. 6 will gain even more strength.

“If you don’t want to remember the history, then the chances of it repeating itself are that much greater,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. “There should be some a moment of silence, or some commemoration. Certainly, there should be a plaque.”

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In the days after the insurrection, Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said he believed that they should preserve a broken window as a reminder. But the windows were replaced, reinforced and cleaned up. Little evidence remains of the widespread damage, in the millions of dollars, that the rioters inflicted on the building.

It is “painful” to see attempts to rewrite what happened, Himes said, but he doesn’t think Jan. 6, 2021, will be forgotten.

“I have confidence in history,” Himes said.