Congress
How Jan. 6 was remembered — and rewritten — on its 5th anniversary
Five years ago, Ryan Samsel ignited the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol grounds when he charged through a police barricade, injuring a police officer in the process.
Samsel returned to the site Tuesday, part of a group of fellow mob members who retraced the route Trump supporters took from the Ellipse to the foot of the Capitol in 2021. They marched to celebrate their blanket pardon by President Donald Trump and attempt to reclaim Jan. 6 as a date of triumph, not tragedy.
The march was the backdrop to a day marked by partisan sparring over a missing plaque and an endorsement by the White House of a torrent of conspiracy theories and lies about the attack and Trump’s pressure campaign to subvert the 2020 election.
A new White House website, with ominous black-and-white images of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and members of the Jan. 6 select committee, offered an alternate and largely false narrative of events at the Capitol that day — one that forcefully denied Trump’s role in stoking the riot and labeled those who stormed the Capitol “patriotic Americans.”
Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson eschewed calls to mount a bronze marker legally mandated by Congress that would serve to honor those who protected the Capitol from the worst attack it had seen since the war of 1812.
“He’s trying to cover up for the fact that Republicans continue to disrespect those brave men and women of the Capitol Police department who defended our country on Jan. 6,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a brief interview.
Democrats held a mock hearing to mark the anniversary of the event featuring firsthand witnesses to the violence that day. Their testimony underscored the increasingly diverging narratives that continue to define the historic attack.
Outside the Capitol, the former Jan. 6 defendants rallied without support from sitting lawmakers. Their most vocal champion, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, had resigned from Congress a day earlier. She was mentioned regretfully by some members of the crowd who soured on her after she began openly feuding with Trump last year.
Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York exchanged tense words with Jake Lang — who was pardoned of numerous assault charges against police on Jan. 6 — from behind a line of officers as he walked past the participants as they prepared to lay flowers on the Capitol steps.
Members of the march chanted, “Whose house? Our house!” — an echo of the rally cries from five years earlier. Mikki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt — the woman who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer outside the House chamber — described Jan. 6 as the day Congress “let the American people down.”
Inside the Capitol, the missing plaque became a stand-in for the swirling controversy about how the infamous day will be remembered.
Johnson said in a Monday statement that the plaque, which was authorized by a law passed in March 2022, was “not implementable” and that Democratic-led proposals for it were also not an option.
That echoes arguments made by the Justice Department, which is trying to dismiss a federal lawsuit filed by two Capitol Police officers seeking to compel the plaque’s mounting.
The law authorizing the marker requires it to list the names of all law enforcement officers who participated in the defense of the Capitol. DOJ lawyers argue in court filings that the plaque that has been made does not comply with the law because it lists the departments who responded — not the individual officers. A deputy to the Architect of the Capitol said in a separate court declaration that a plaque listing the officers’ names has not been made.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) called Johnson’s claim that the plaque does not comply with the law “ridiculous, and so is he.” Many Hill Democrats have placed replicas of the plaque outside their offices as Johnson refuses to mount the genuine article.
In one effort to resolve the issue, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said Tuesday he would seek to change the law to accommodate the existing plaque, but it was not immediately clear if he would be able to garner the unanimous support necessary to quickly act.
Testifying at the Democratic shadow hearing, former Rep. Adam Kinzinger — who served as a Republican on the House’s previous Jan. 6 panel — said he was “convinced” the plaque would be put on display by next January, when the next Congress begins.
“I’ll humbly suggest maybe you can double the size of it by then,” he said.
The Democrats’ event was held in the basement after the speaker’s office declined to allow them to use a dedicated hearing room or the larger auditorium in the Capitol Visitor Center, according to a person granted anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. Johnson’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the claim.
No sitting House Republicans attended. They spent their day across town holding a policy retreat at the Kennedy Center, where Trump addressed them and brought up the events of Jan. 6 without prompting. He complained that the media failed to report how he told people to march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol that day and renewed old gripes against Pelosi, whom he blamed for rejecting National Guard troops to guard the Capitol — even though only Trump could call up the Guard.
The new White House website also accuses Pelosi and members of the Jan. 6 select committee of maneuvering to unfairly blame Trump for the riot. Not mentioned are any of the many comments critical of Trump from inside the GOP at the time nor the 10 House and seven Senate Republicans who voted against him in subsequent impeachment proceedings.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune sidestepped a question Tuesday about the website’s claim that Capitol Police helped instigate the riot. He told reporters he hadn’t seen the site and offered general praise for the force.
The history of Jan. 6 will remain a live issue on Capitol Hill for the remainder of the current Congress, with a new Republican-led panel investigating the attack and the work of the prior Democratic-led Jan. 6 committee.
Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), who serves on the new panel, attacked those on the Democratic-led Jan. 6 committee for seeking to malign Trump.
“Their Select Committee wasn’t about transparency or the truth; it was political theatre,” he said in a statement. “My colleagues and I are focused on uncovering the truth and following the facts wherever they lead.”
Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday he plans to deploy an unusual procedural maneuver in a bid to unfreeze the House floor this week, seeking to send the annual Pentagon policy bill and the GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act to the Senate in a single package.
That is likely a recipe for a continued standoff between the two chambers over the SAVE America Act, which has stalled in the Senate for months due to internal GOP divides. Under Johnson’s plan, the annual defense policy bill, which typically passes every year with large bipartisan majorities, could become a collateral victim of the impasse.
Asked in brief interview if he had talked to Senate Majority Leader John Thune about his plans, Johnson replied, “I have to do my job in the House, and they’ve got to do their job in the Senate, so we’ll see what happens.”
Johnson is seeking to placate House conservative hard-liners, led by Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who have threatened to oppose the procedural measures that give Republicans control of the floor unless they agree to tougher tactics meant to force the Senate into passing the elections bill.
House GOP leaders discussed the plan to merge the two bills over the weekend as Luna pushed to amend the defense bill directly.
She did not say in an interview Monday whether Johnson’s gambit would suffice: “We want it baked together, not able to be stripped out,” she said.
But the Senate is free to work its own will, and members of that chamber are likely to reject any defense bill that has the partisan elections bill attached. That would set the stage for GOP leaders to strip it out when the House and Senate hash out the differences between their competing Pentagon bills later this year.
Johnson, meanwhile, is pushing a separate plan to pass a slimmed-down version of the SAVE America Act through the party-line budget reconciliation process — an option hard-liners have all but rejected.
“I don’t think that that can be done,” Luna told reporters Monday.
He’s also facing another complication: The version of the SAVE America Act he is proposing to attach to the Pentagon bill doesn’t include the latest demands for the bill from President Donald Trump — including a near-total ban on mail voting that is opposed by many Republicans.
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
Lawmakers of both parties questioned Secretary of State Marco Rubio and top Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff Monday in the first broad congressional briefings on President Donald Trump’s Iran deal.
While Democrats asked some of the sharpest questions, participants in an afternoon conference call with House members said, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) at one point pressed the administration officials on the fate of Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade uranium.
According to two people granted anonymity to disclose the private remarks, Witkoff and Rubio repeated assurances the administration has privately made to select lawmakers in prior briefings — that the goal is to negotiate a final deal that would prohibit Iran from keeping its highly enriched uranium.
The memorandum of understanding Trump signed earlier this month, they said, was meant to launch those negotiations. Witkoff, the people said, added that the technical team involved in that part of the talks was traveling from Switzerland to Qatar, where talks between the U.S. and Iran are set to happen Tuesday.
Democrats, meanwhile, pushed the administration for more details on what financial benefits Iran could reap under the memorandum — including proceeds from previously sanctioned oil sales.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) went back and forth with Rubio and Witkoff over the lifting of the oil sanctions, two other people granted anonymity on the House call said. The officials eventually cut off the conversation and ended the call.
At another point, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) raised concerns about Witkoff’s business interests in the Middle East as he’s negotiating with Iran, prompting a sharp defense from Rubio, those people said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asked Rubio and Witkoff about the oil sanctions during a separate all-senators call Monday, saying in a statement afterward that they “confirmed to me that Iran will reap billions in oil revenue while retaining dangerous leverage over the Strait of Hormuz.”
“If this is the administration’s defense behind closed doors, Secretary Rubio should make it under oath, in public, before the Foreign Relations Committee,” Schumer added, calling the briefing “delayed, deficient, and devoid of details.”
An administration official granted anonymity to speak candidly countered on Schumer’s characterization, noting that he had previously gotten a briefing of the deal as part of a group of top leaders engaged on national security matters. Schumer, the official said, had the opportunity to ask multiple follow-up questions on the Senate call.
A separate group of White House officials briefed top congressional leaders and key committee chairs in a classified briefing in the Capitol later Monday.
The administration has faced bipartisan skepticism over multiple provisions of the memorandum of understanding — particularly the lifting of oil sanctions and a $300 billion reconstruction fund that many Senate Republicans fear will help fuel Iran’s military and regional proxies.
Rubio and Witkoff sought to ease concerns about the slow reopening of the Strait of Hormuz — the critical trade route whose closure has sparked higher fuel and fertilizer costs. Both officials said more mine removal is required, and Witkoff indicated that Iran broke the terms of the Trump-signed deal by launching a drone attack on a passing ship over the weekend.
They also sought to assure lawmakers that Iran has received no money under the memorandum — especially not directly from American sources. Administration officials have previously pledged in smaller briefings that the reconstruction fund won’t include U.S. funds.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) called the Senate briefing a “productive conversation” but said “much of what I heard today is similar to what I heard last week” during a dinner at Vice President JD Vance’s residence.
The Senate Ethics Committee has dismissed allegations of misconduct levied against Sen. Ruben Gallego, who stood accused by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of “campaign finance violations and inappropriate conduct of a sexual nature.”
The charges came following the resignation of the Arizona Democrat’s longtime friend, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), who was forced to step down amid accusations of serious sexual misconduct. Luna, a Florida Republican, sought to implicate Gallego by claiming in an interview on CBS that a woman would come forward about an “incident that occurred between the two of them at the same time and the event was sexual in nature allegedly.”
But in a letter to Gallego sent Monday — which he shared in a public news release — the notoriously inactive Ethics Committee cited Gallego’s “prompt contact with the Committee following media reports of the allegations and appreciated your full cooperation with the Committee throughout the investigation.”
Gallego has maintained he was unaware of the allegations against Swalwell and said in a statement he was a victim of “right-wing conspiracies peddled by far-right activists like Anna Paulina Luna, the White House, and their allies.”
He continued, “I look forward to an apology from Rep. Luna for weaponizing the ethics process while refusing to investigate historic corruption that’s making life harder for families.”
Luna, in a post on X, defended her referral to the Senate Ethics Committee.
“The good news about DC is everyone talks, and eventually the reporters come forward with your texts,” Luna wrote on social media. “Do yourself a favor and keep raising for your legal defense fund. Once a creep always a creep, and you’re gonna need it.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s state. She represents Florida.
-
Politics1 year agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics1 year agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics1 year agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship10 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words