4/3/21
Come Tuesday, it will be three months since supporters of Donald Trump staged a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol. Not much time at all, really. But the former president and his enablers have been hard at work trying to persuade Americans not to believe what we all saw with our own eyes that day. “It was zero threat,” Trump told friendly Fox News host Laura Ingraham last month. “Some of them went in, and they’re hugging and kissing the police and the guards, you know? They had great relationships.” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told a radio host that the rioters were “people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law,” and added: “I never felt threatened.” This kind of shameless revisionism cannot be allowed to take root. It is important to keep fresh in our memories the true sights and sounds of that day — a day when Congress was supposed to be performing its duty to certify the electoral college tally of the 2020 election. A day when democracy itself came under attack by faux patriots. The whole country witnessed an insurrectionist mob, which Trump later referred to as “very special” people, breaching the building and going on a rampage. More than 350 individuals have since been charged in violence that left five people dead and about 140 police officers injured.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has instructed the House historian’s office to collect video interviews of individual lawmakers who were there. But much more is needed. Efforts to put together an independent 9/11-style commission to examine what happened and why have been stalled in part because of Republican insistence on expanding its mission to antifa and other issues unrelated to Jan. 6. Reps. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) and Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), the chairman and ranking minority-party member, respectively, of a subcommittee that oversees the Capitol Police, recently wrote a letter calling for the release of an upcoming report by the Capitol Police’s inspector general that would examine how the legislative branch’s law enforcement agency performed three months ago. “In the wake of the January 6th attack that shook the confidence of so many Americans, taking a more open and transparent approach isn’t just the right thing to do, it will be the most effective as we seek to restore citizens’ confidence that the heart of America’s government is secure,” the two lawmakers wrote. The truth is the least of what we owe the public servants whose lives were on the line that day. And just as important, it is what we owe ourselves.
