Five years after the US Capitol attack, rival events and narratives expose a country split over the meaning of January 6 and Donald Trump’s pardons.
WASHINGTON: The fifth anniversary of the US Capitol riot has laid bare a nation still fractured by competing accounts of the attack that reshaped American politics.
Rival events in Washington on Tuesday underscored the deep division between official findings of a violent bid to overturn an election and a narrative portraying it as a protest unjustly criminalised.
Top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries vowed to never allow extremists to “whitewash their treachery” in a social media post marking the day.
Meanwhile, the White House published a website attempting to rewrite that history, labelling the rioters “peaceful patriotic protesters”.
Democrats convened an unofficial hearing inside the Capitol featuring police and others who experienced the violence firsthand.
They later held a candlelit vigil joined by relatives of five police officers whose deaths have been linked to the violence.
“While Donald Trump pardons insurrectionists, lets those who attack our police officers walk free, we stand here with our first responders,” said one participant.
Outside the building, Trump supporters staged a march retracing the route taken by rioters in 2021.
A crowd of at most 200 marchers donned Trump’s trademark red hats and waved banners demanding “justice 4 jan 6ers”.
Tami Jackson, who flew from Texas, said she was rallying “in remembrance of the people that lost their lives that day”.
Her husband Brian called some of the rioters “martyrs”.
The event was promoted by former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was pardoned by Trump while serving a 22-year sentence.
A new Democratic report documents dozens of pardoned rioters later charged with new crimes, from child sexual assault to conspiracy to murder.
The party warns that the clemency risks normalising political violence.
Trump alluded briefly to the riot in remarks at a House Republican strategy retreat, accusing Democrats and the media of misrepresenting his role.
The White House website repeated Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
It praised Trump for issuing sweeping pardons and labelled the investigation into the attack a “partisan witch hunt”.
Former special counsel Jack Smith has said the attack would not have occurred without Trump.
He abandoned the federal case after the Republican leader’s reelection, in line with Justice Department policy.
Trump was impeached soon after the riot by the Democratic-controlled House but acquitted by the Republican-led Senate.
