Sykes: A Reminder -- Donald Trump is the January 6 President
Never forget...
By Charlie Sykes
Day [5] of 2026 and Trump has already threatened military action/annexation/takeover against: Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Greenland, Iran, Mexico, Venezuela” — Susan Glasser
“The Trump second term: corruption + lawless authoritarianism at home / aggression + predatory imperialism abroad. “ — David Frum
Before we succumb to the amnesia of Trump’s Upside Down World, let’s take a moment to remember what happened five years ago.
Because the shame of that day endures, and its consequences are all around us.
Five years ago today, a mob of insurrectionists — fueled with conspiracies and lies, and incited to violence by a mendacious conman clinging to power — stormed the Capitol. It was a Day of Infamy.
But now — five years later —we know that the infamy was just beginning — a cascading failure of the institutions we thought would be the guardrails of our Constitutional order. Nearly 1,000 rioters have pleaded guilty to criminal charges, including more than 300 who pleaded guilty to felonies. Leaders of far-right militia groups were found guilty of seditionist conspiracy.
Trump pardoned them all.
Along the way, our moral universe was turned on its head as Trump’s decade-long assault on the truth came to fruition.
Sitting at the center of the conspiracy to overturn the election, the man who summoned the mob and sat by while it attacked the Capitol, emerged immune and unscathed.
This was the headline on the New York Times editorial last week, and it was exactly right: “Trump Is the Jan. 6 President.”
It was a turning point toward a version of Mr. Trump who is even more lawless than the one who governed the country in his first term.
It heralded a culture of political unaccountability, in which people who violently attacked Congress and beat police officers escaped without lasting consequence. The politicians and pundits who had egged on the attack with their lies escaped, as well. The aftermath of Jan. 6 made the Republican Party even more feckless, beholden to one man and willing to pervert reality to serve his interests. Once Mr. Trump won election again in 2024, despite his role in encouraging the riot and his many distortions about it, it emboldened him to govern in defiance of the Constitution, without regard for the truth and with malice toward those who stand up to his abuses.
Tragically, America is still living in a political era that began on Jan. 6, 2021. Recognizing as much is necessary to bring this era to an end before it has many more anniversaries.
Jack Smith reminded us. Last month, former Special Counsel Jack Smith testified before the House Judiciary Committee, and laid out the details of Donald Trump’s role in the January 6 attack and the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. The transcript of what he told Congress was released last week. It’s very much worth your time.
Smith repeatedly emphasized Trump’s central role in the attack:
• “President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy.”
• “The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him.”
• “These crimes were committed for his benefit. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit.”
The violence was a foreseeable result of Trump’s actions, Smith said, noting that he deliberately used the chaos to further his goals:
• “Our view of the evidence was that he caused it and that he exploited it and that it was foreseeable to him.”
• Trump created a “level of distrust” by making false claims and was “aware in the days leading up to Jan. 6th that his supporters were angry when he invited them and then he directed them to the Capitol.”
• “Now, once they were at the Capitol and once the attack on the Capitol happened, he refused to stop it.”
• “And when the violence was going on, he had to be pushed repeatedly by his staff members to do anything to quell it.”
Endangering Mike Pence. A significant portion of Smith’s testimony focused on Trump’s treatment of Mike Pence during the height of the violence:
• “He instead issued a tweet that without question in my mind endangered the life of his own Vice President.”
• Smith noted that while Pence was in danger, Trump continued to pressure him to “impose his own choice about who should be President over the will of the American people.”
The conspiracy to overturn the election. Smith characterized the broader effort to stay in power as a criminal scheme predicated on deceit:
• “The through line of all of Mr. Trump’s criminal efforts was deceit—knowingly false claims of fraud.”
• “Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.”
• He described the manipulation of supporters as a specific type of fraud: “In a lot of ways this case was an affinity fraud. The President had people who he had built up... trust in him... and he preyed on that.”
• “He was free to say that he thought he won the election. He was even free to say falsely that he won the election. But what he was not free to do was violate Federal law and use knowingly false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government function.”
This is not normal. So today is a good moment to pause and remind yourselves: You are not the crazy ones for remembering what actually happened. And it is up to us to keep the historical record intact.
On the first anniversary of the attack I wrote: “We know what actually happened, because we saw in it real time. And here are some data points to keep in mind as we relive the experience:
Five people are dead as a result of the riot that Trump incited, including Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died the next day. More than 150 police officers were injured in the assault on the Capitol, some with head wounds, cracked ribs and smashed spinal disks. Pro-Trump rioters shouted “kill him with his own gun” at officer Michael Fanone while they tased him, triggering a heart attack. Four other police officers committed suicide in the days and months after the riot.
Despite the violence, 147 Republicans voted to overturn the election results hours after the attack.
A week after the attack, in a bipartisan 232-197 vote, the House impeached Trump for a second time. Ten Republicans voted for impeachment. The rest — 197 — sided with Trump.
In February, 57 senators — including seven Republicans — voted to convict Trump. Conviction required a two-thirds vote, so he was acquitted.
But right-wing media was quick to rally around both Trump and his supporters who attacked the Capitol. The day after the Insurrection, The Federalist’s Ben Domenech downplayed the violence, insisted that Republicans rally around the protesters: “A party of the right that rejects the mob of people who spent their hard-earned, working-class money to drive to Washington, D.C., and wave a flag as deplorables will never win, or deserve to, any more than a party of the left could reject naming something Black Lives Matter plaza.”
The pivot came quickly.
In a secret ballot in early February, House Republicans voted 145-to-61 to keep Liz Cheney in her leadership post, despite her outspoken support for impeachment. Three months later, with the support of GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republicans voted to oust her — replacing Cheney with Trump cheerleader Elise Stefanik.
By the end of the year, with the exception of Cheney and Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger, GOP critics of Trump’s role in the Insurrection had either retired or fallen silent.
And the GOP had rallied around the defeated, disgraced, twice impeached ex-president. The NYT reported: “A Year After Capitol Riot, Trump’s Hold on G.O.P. Is Unrivaled.” Reported the Wapo: “How Republicans became the party of Trump’s election lie after Jan. 6.”
Political commentator Charlie Sykes, an original Never Trumper, is the author of “How the Right Lost Its Mind.” Subscribe to his “To the Contrary” newsletter here.
Image: Associated Press.