Five years later, President Donald Trump continues to try to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. In many ways he’s been successful.
He’s pardoned nearly everyone convicted in the riots, including people convicted of violent crimes such as attacking police officers.
His administration has also pushed out many of the federal officials involved in prosecuting Jan. 6 participants and is investigating remaining federal prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases. Trump and his allies have targeted Democrats who investigated the Jan. 6 attack, with some Trump loyalists calling for their arrests.
Here are four ways legal and political experts say the nation has changed since the attack.
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1. Trump in many ways is stronger than ever
He’s back in office despite being impeached and prosecuted for the attack.
The charges against him for his role in inciting the violence and trying to overturn the 2020 election were dropped when he won the presidency in 2024. Trump has asserted he did nothing wrong that day. “They impeached me for nothing twice,” he said Tuesday, speaking to House Republicans.
Former special counsel Jack Smith recently defended his prosecutions and said he would have secured convictions against Trump.
When Trump took that case to the Supreme Court, the justices extended immunity to him and all former presidents for clearly official actions. The Supreme Court since then has temporarily upheld many of Trump’s efforts to expand presidential power.
But his power isn’t unchecked, argues Ben Raderstorf, author of the newsletter “If You Can Keep It” and a strategist with Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan antiauthoritarian group.
“Yes, he holds immense power today, but because that power is still temporarily delegated through elections from the American people, it’s not the power he wants,” Raderstorf said. “He does not yet have the arbitrary, dominating rule through strength alone that he sought five years ago and still craves. Which makes him, at least domestically, much weaker than he would like us to believe.”
2. Trump has reshaped Republican opinion about Jan. 6
In the days, months and years since Jan. 6, Trump has framed it as a “day of love” and repeatedly called attackers “patriots.”
His words have resonated with his supporters. While polls have found a strong majority of Americans oppose pardoning Jan. 6 rioters, particularly violent criminals, a majority of Republicans approve, a December CBS News-YouGov poll found. That poll also found only 30 percent of Republicans strongly disapprove of the attack — a new low among Republicans.
Democrats — and Republican critics of Trump — are trying to push back on that narrative. House Democrats on Tuesday held a hearing that featured police officers, a convicted attacker, a former prosecutor and a former Republican politician to talk about what happened that day.
3. The next fight may be over payouts to Jan. 6 rioters
Now that they’re out of jail, there’s a movement among some Jan. 6 rioters to get compensation from the government. Proud Boys — whose leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy and faced decades in jail before being pardoned by Trump — are suing the government for $100 million in damages. Some of those leaders were in Washington on Tuesday retracing the steps of their march from Trump’s speech on the National Mall to the Capitol.
It would be up to the Justice Department to deliver on those payouts. A lawyer pushing for compensation told the New York Times that while he’s had “positive meetings,” about this, there appears to be “no appetite” for it.
Still, Senate Democrats are introducing legislation trying to ban any kind of compensation for the rioters.
In the Jan. 6 hearing Tuesday with House Democrats, former Justice Department prosecutor Brendan Ballou warned that legitimizing the attackers with monetary compensation would embolden them.
“We are going to have a situation similar to what we’ve seen in other countries,” he said, “where you essentially have militias and paramilitary forces that are loyal to this administration but unaccountable to anyone — and paid by taxpayers.”
No officers have received any kind of compensation, former Capitol Police officer Winston Pingeon testified Tuesday.
4. Political violence remains an ongoing threat
It just looks different since the attack five years ago, said Gina Ligon, who leads a counterterrorism center at the University of Nebraska at Omaha that is partly funded by the Department of Homeland Security.
“In the past five years, we have seen America’s terrorist threat to the United States become more fractured,” she said. “I would even describe it as ‘everything, everywhere, all at once’ — from kids as young as 14 inspired by all types of violent radicalization to individuals with grievances about technology, capitalism, foreign policy, reproductive rights and more.”
In September, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed onstage. In June, a Minnesota Democratic lawmaker was killed in her home alongside her husband, while another was wounded in his home. In April, the Pennsylvania governor’s home was set on fire.
Trump critics say they can draw a connection from Jan. 6 violence to today and even future election uncertainty.
“I truly believe that day led to more political violence,” Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Illinois) said at the Tuesday hearing.
Trump and his Justice Department have moved to try to decertify voting machines, require passports to register to vote and to acquire voter information in 18 mostly Democratic states. “He’s setting up cause to refuse election results,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) warned at the hearing.
“Trump is on full-blast mode on ensuring next year’s elections aren’t free and fair,” said Kim Lane Scheppele, who studies the rise and fall of constitutional governments and is teaching at Stanford Law. “And January 6th foreshadowed the violence that we’re seeing on a continuing basis today.”
The post Takeaways from the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6 appeared first on Washington Post.
