Five years after Capitol riot, Trump aims to rewrite history as Dems push for remembrance

WASHINGTON (CN) — When President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office for the first time after his first term ended on Jan. 20, 2025, his first act was to pardon nearly 1,600 individuals who participated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to “begin the process of national reconciliation.”

The sweeping pardons marked a stark reversal in the federal government’s relationship with the Capitol riot, which included 1,583 criminal cases, 1,270 convictions, 1,009 guilty pleas, 608 charged for assaulting or impeding federal officers, 174 charged for assault with a dangerous weapon and a since-dismissed criminal case against Trump.

Since the insurrection, the national story surrounding the unprecedented event remains as divisive as ever. Trump has characterized the Jan. 6 prosecutions as a “national injustice,” while congressional Democrats slammed it as a solemn day that must be remembered.

“The Jan. 6 violent attack on the Capitol that took place five years ago was shameful then, it is shameful now, and it will be shameful always and forever,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said during a Democrat-led panel discussion on Capitol Hill commemorating the riot’s anniversary. “We must continue to learn from what happened on Jan. 6 in order to ensure it never happens again.”

No Republicans participated in the event, during which lawmakers warned the Trump administration was attempting to rewrite history and erase what Democrats have long said was the president’s central role in inciting the attack on the Capitol.

“Some people want to rewrite the history of Jan. 6 to ignore what we saw with our own eyes,” said Missouri Representative Bennie Thompson. “Some people want us to forget the lessons of that day, to pretend that we have overcome the threats facing our democracy and the rule of law. We will not allow that to happen.”

Among the witnesses who joined Democrats at Tuesday’s meeting was Pamela Hemphill, a convicted Jan. 6 rioter who refused a pardon from the White House. Hemphill told lawmakers that she had “fallen for the president’s lies” about the results of the 2020 election.

“Accepting that pardon would be lying about what happened on Jan. 6,” she said. “I am guilty, and I own that guilt.”

The Trump administration posted its own version of events on the White House website, promoting it as the “Real Jan. 6 story.”

According to the White House, Democrats “masterfully reversed reality” and branded “peaceful patriotic protesters” as insurrectionists without evidence of an armed rebellion or intent to overthrow the government.

The White House created a Jan. 6 timeline, which grossly mischaracterizes the riot and places the blame for the day’s violence on the U.S. Capitol Police for utilizing tear gas, flash bangs and rubber munitions to stave off the waves of rioters.

It pointed to officers seemingly opening doors for and waving rioters through the Capitol — which officers repeatedly testified as being a last-ditch effort to avoid sparking further violence inside the building with the overwhelming crowd — as “security failures.”

Subsequent entries include “Call for Peace: President Trump Urges Calm,” “Pelosi Admits Responsibility: Leaked Pelosi Video Reveals Security Lapses,” “Tragedy at the Capitol: Ashli Babbitt Murdered in Cold Blood” and “Betrayal of the President: Mike Pence Refuses to Act.”

The timeline is filled with debunked conspiracies, including suggestions that the FBI had placed informants among the crowd to spark the violence — despite video evidence that five unconnected men were responsible — such as Ray Epps, a former Marine and Oath Keeper who was sentenced to one year of probation.

Epps said he sought to deescalate tensions at the initial police line before the men lifted a metal barricade and pushed officers to the ground, causing one to fall backward and hit her head on a metal railing.

On Capitol Hill, Republicans also resisted longstanding calls — and a legal requirement — to install a plaque in the Capitol commemorating the lives lost during the Jan. 6 riot.

Though Congress passed a law after Jan. 6 requiring the plaque’s placement on the Capitol building’s western face, the 2023 installation deadline has long passed. House Speaker Mike Johnson has for years refused to implement the law and order the Architect of the Capitol to affix the plaque.

And Johnson’s office said Monday night that the plaque was “not implementable,” signaling that the memorial would not be placed on the Capitol on the five-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot.

Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, renewed calls for Johnson to comply with the law.

“It took them 24 hours to put up a new plaque allegedly changing the name of the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center,” said Raskin, alluding to the Trump administration’s controversial effort to rebrand the Washington, D.C., cultural center. “They have a legal requirement to put it up, and I call on Speaker Johnson to put it up today. It is gathering dust in a closet somewhere.”

Several Democratic members of Congress protested Johnson’s refusal by posting replicas of the Jan. 6 plaque outside their Capitol Hill offices.

A lawsuit, brought by ​​former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges to force Johnson to finally install the plaque is still pending.

Metropolitan and Capitol police officers endured some of the worst violence of Jan. 6 in a tunnel on the Lower West Terrace, where hundreds of rioters dragged officers out of the tunnel and shot them with stun guns, beat them and pepper sprayed them.

The White House timeline states no officers were killed on Jan. 6, but does not mention the four officers who took their own lives in the following months or the officer who died after suffering two strokes on Jan. 7, 2021.

Under former President Joe Biden, the Justice Department committed significant resources to investigating and prosecuting those involved in the riots, from those charged with misdemeanors for illegally entering the Capitol to central figures from the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who helped plan the riot.

The effort was the largest single investigation the nation’s top law enforcement agency had engaged in, yet five years later nearly every charge, conviction and sentence has been wiped away by Trump’s sweeping pardons. Oath Keeper founder Stewart Rhodes and his 13 lieutenants saw their sentences commuted by Trump, though their convictions remain on their records.

Rhodes and Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs were convicted of seditious conspiracy, a rare Civil War-era charge that had not been used since the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, for their part in planning the far-right militia’s role in trying to overthrow the government on Jan. 6.

The plan included several “Quick Reaction Forces” stationed just outside Washington with weapons caches ready to descend on the city on Rhodes’ command — Rhodes tried to find a sympathetic boat owner who could deliver the weapons to the mall by sailing across the Potomac from Virginia — which he declined to give.

Five years later, many of the Capitol rioters pardoned by Trump mustered near the White House on Tuesday morning for a march billed as a memorial to Babbitt and others who died on Jan. 6. The group processed down the Mall to the Capitol building, where Babbitt’s mother laid a wreath in her memory.

Among the event’s participants was former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who in 2023 was sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in the Capitol riot. Tarrio was among those pardoned by the president last year.

Speaking to marchers on the Mall, Tarrio slammed Justice Department prosecutors and took aim at members of the media, who he accused of lying about people charged in connection with the Capitol riot.

“Retribution also comes for you,” he said, later clarifying he was referring to legal action.

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