Jan. 6 riot is a year past, but not over
Partisan division endures as investigations proceed
Some events are so cataclysmic they can be universally recognized by their date alone, such 9/11, and Dec. 7. And now Jan. 6.
Unlike the aftermath of those earlier episodes, though, the one-year anniversary of the assault on the U.S. Capitol isn’t likely to be a moment of national reflection and unity. It’s more likely to spotlight bitter divisions over why it happened and how it matters. Amid an ongoing congressional inquiry and the fog of conspiracy theories, Americans don’t even agree on what happened.
Consider: On Thursday, the House plans to commemorate the day with a moment of silence in the chamber at noon; members of the House and Senate will stand on the Capitol steps at 5:30 p.m. for a prayer vigil marking what they decry as an insurrection. But former President Donald Trump, while he has canceled plans for a 5 p.m. news conference at his Mar-a-lago retreat in Florida, continues to press unsubstantiated claims that the dispute is over an election that was stolen from him.
Trump’s message has found an audience. Nearly 3 in 10 said in a new USA Today/suffolk Poll that the Jan. 6 protest was “aimed at preventing a fraudulent election,” even though no evidence of significant voter fraud has been found in post-election “audits” and investigations in states including Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Texas.
A 58% majority of Republicans said President Joe Biden wasn’t legitimately elected.
The poll of 1,000 registered voters Dec. 27 to Dec. 30 has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
The reverberations of Jan. 6 are still shaking. At least 19 states passed 34 laws last year imposing new restrictions on voting, according to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, and several are considering bills to strengthen the hand of partisan officials to oversee election processes and even reject vote counts. Supporters say they are acting to avoid fraud; critics say they are undermining access to voting and safeguards designed to protect the count. Both sides say democracy is at stake.
The House committee established to investigate what happened on Jan. 6 is preparing to hold public hearings in the next few months and to release an interim report this summer and a final report in the fall. Officials say the panel will shed light on the planning and financing of that day’s rally near the White House and the attack on the Capitol that followed, including Trump’s role. The committee hasn’t ruled out making criminal referrals to the Justice Department for the central figures involved, perhaps even including the former president.
“What we have been able to ascertain is that we came perilously close to losing our democracy,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-miss., the panel’s chairman, said on CNN’S “State of the Union.” “Had those insurrectionists been successful, we are not certain what we would have had, had it not been for the brave men and women who protected the Capitol in spite of being woefully outnumbered.”
Trump is unlikely to accept the committee’s conclusions, however, and the panel is likely to be disbanded if Republicans gain control of the House in the midterm elections, which is considered likely. Trump derides the panel as “The Unselect Committee of Radical Left Democrats, and two failed Republicans” and calls its inquiry a “witch hunt.”