U.S. Capitol Police members walk in front of the legislature on Jan. 6, 2022, the first anniversary of an attack by supporters of former president Donald Trump.Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
U.S. Attorney-General Merrick Garland is promising to bring more perpetrators of last year’s attack on the Capitol to justice, and he is suggesting that coming charges may include those who orchestrated the riot.
On the eve of the insurrection’s first anniversary, Mr. Garland warned that the more than 700 prosecutions undertaken by his department in relation to that day “will not be our last.”
“The Justice Department remains committed to holding all Jan. 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under the law,” he said in a speech Wednesday. “Whether they were present that day, or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.”
The pledge capped a year in which the U.S. government struggled to tamp down the forces that led supporters of then-president Donald Trump to attack the seat of the country’s government, even as the internecine strife laid bare by the violence did not abate.
So far, prosecutors have laid a slew of charges – ranging from obstructing Congress to seriously injuring police officers – against alleged rioters.
Investigations have uncovered details of the actions of Mr. Trump and his advisers before and during the insurrection. Two of his former advisers stand accused of contempt of Congress for failing to co-operate with the probe.
But the ex-president himself has continued to push the conspiracy theories that fuelled the attack, claiming in e-mail blasts and speeches that the 2020 election was “rigged” and the “Crime of the Century.” Recent polling shows a strong majority of his supporters still believe that he actually won. And the Republican Party remains in his thrall, pursuing an aggressive strategy to make it possible for Republican officials to overturn future election results.
It is all stoking fears among many Americans that, despite Mr. Garland’s promises of justice, the prospect for a repeat of the riot is very real.
“Jan. 6 was not a one-off. Jan. 6 was, in my eyes, a rehearsal of what may happen in 2024. It was an incompetently planned, incompetently managed, incompetently executed attempted coup,” said Paul Eaton, a retired U.S. major-general. “Next time, the Trump camp will have in place more allies, they will have in place a better plan.”
On the anniversary of the attack, here is where the key groups stand.
Scenes from last year's insurrection: At top, rioters scale Congress's walls, and at bottom Trump supporter Richard Barnett sits at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's desk. Ms. Pelosi, one of the mob's major targets, had been spirited from the House chamber to a secure location; some of her staff barricaded themselves in a conference room to stay safe.John Minchillo/The Associated Press; SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
The rioters
Around noon on Jan. 6, 2021, thousands gathered near the White House to hear Mr. Trump demand that his election loss to Joe Biden be thrown out. “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more,” he told the crowd.
Within an hour, Mr. Trump’s supporters had burst into the Capitol to shut down the certification of Mr. Biden’s victory. The mob beat up police officers, smashed windows and doors, and hunted fleeing lawmakers. They chanted “Hang Mike Pence” after Mr. Trump’s vice-president, who was overseeing the certification that day, refused Mr. Trump’s orders to invalidate the election result.
So far, 725 people have been charged over the riot and 165 have pleaded guilty.
The toughest sentence handed down to date is five years in prison to Robert Scott Palmer. The 54-year-old Floridian threw a wooden plank, a fire extinguisher and a metal pole at police, and also sprayed officers with the extinguisher. He told a court last month that Mr. Trump caused the riot because he “lied to” his supporters.
Jacob Chansley, the shirtless, horn-wearing Arizona conspiracy theorist, was sentenced to three years and five months in prison for invading the Senate chamber.
Speaking with The Globe and Mail near the Capitol that day, Mr. Chansley, who goes by the name Jake Angeli, said he had climbed on the Senate’s dias to call for Mr. Pence to come out of hiding.
Jacob Chansley of Arizona, middle, with other insurrectionists inside the Capitol.Manuel Balce Ceneta/The Associated Press
Another Trump supporter, Ryan Suleski, told The Globe that day that the purpose of storming the Capitol was “the intimidation” of politicians. He has pleaded not guilty to obstructing Congress and stealing legislators’ documents.
Some of the accused insurrectionists were part of far-right groups, including the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters. Some discussed and planned the attack online beforehand. But most appear to have had no known affiliation.
Researchers at the University of Chicago found that the rioters skewed more middle-aged and middle-class than far-right protesters typically do.
Roughly half of the people charged are either business owners or work in white-collar professions, and about two-thirds are over the age of 34.
“We’re used to thinking of right-wing extremism as the fringe: less than 1 per cent of the population, limited to militias. But we’re seeing a mainstream movement,” said Robert Pape, a political scientist leading the research. “This movement is not fading away.”
There are still about 350 suspects police have not yet been able to track down. This includes the person who planted a pair of pipe bombs at the Democratic and Republican parties’ national headquarters near the Capitol the evening before the attack. The FBI has footage of a suspect in a grey sweatshirt but no identification.
Jan. 6, 2021, at a glance
Washington
N.Y.
Penn.
The White House
Washington, D.C.
PENNSYLVANIA AVE.
Va.
12:00 p.m.:
Trump rally
United States Capitol
RNC offices:
Explosive
devices found
1:00 p.m.:
Pro-Trump protesters
approach Capitol as
Congress gathers
2:15 p.m.:
Mob breaks
through
security
DNC offices:
Evacuated after
a suspicious
package found
Potomac
River
0
300
METRES
United States Capitol
Senate
chamber
House
chamber
Statuary
Hall
Rotunda
Protesters
arrive
john sopinski/THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: TILEZEN;
OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS; HIU; google maps;
graphic news
Washington
N.Y.
Penn.
The White House
Washington, D.C.
PENNSYLVANIA AVE.
Va.
12 p.m.:
Trump rally
United States Capitol
RNC offices:
Explosive
devices found
1 p.m.:
Pro-Trump protesters
approach Capitol as
Congress gathers
2:15 p.m.:
Mob breaks
through
security
DNC offices:
Evacuated after
a suspicious
package found
Potomac
River
0
300
METRES
United States Capitol
Senate
chamber
House
chamber
Statuary
Hall
Rotunda
Protesters
arrive
john sopinski/THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: TILEZEN;
OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS; HIU; google maps;
graphic news
Washington
N.Y.
Penn.
The White House
Washington, D.C.
PENNSYLVANIA AVE.
Va.
12 p.m.:
Trump rally
United States Capitol
RNC offices:
Explosive
devices found
1 p.m.:
Pro-Trump protesters
approach Capitol as
Congress gathers
2:15 p.m.:
Mob breaks
through
security
DNC offices:
Evacuated after
a suspicious
package found
Potomac
River
0
300
METRES
United States Capitol
Senate
chamber
House
chamber
Statuary
Hall
Rotunda
Protesters
arrive
john sopinski/THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: TILEZEN; OPENSTREETMAP
CONTRIBUTORS; HIU; google maps; graphic news
Jan. 6, 2022, at a glance
U.S. Capitol Police keep watch on the West-Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.JONATHAN ERNST/Reuters
1 of 15
The investigation
During the days leading up to the riot, Mr. Trump’s circle discussed plans to overturn Mr. Biden’s election.
In text messages to Mark Meadows, the then-White House chief of staff, Fox News host Sean Hannity referred to these discussions, which included leaning on Mr. Pence to disrupt the pending election certification. Mr. Hannity, an informal adviser to Mr. Trump, expressed his doubts about the plan. “I do NOT see January 6 happening the way he is being told,” Mr. Hannity texted Mr. Meadows a week before the eventual insurrection. On the eve of the riot, he referred to “Pence pressure” and wrote “I’m very worried about the next 48 hours.”
These messages were released this week by a House of Representatives select committee investigating Jan. 6, with a view to reporting later this year on how exactly such a breach of the Capitol could have happened.
So far, the committee’s most significant revelations have involved the activities of Mr. Trump and his advisers before and on Jan. 6. Mr. Trump, the committee has confirmed, watched the riot unfold on television, ignoring pleas from members of Congress, other Fox News hosts and even his own son to intervene and stop the violence. Mr. Trump waited for more than two hours after putschists breached the Capitol before calling on his supporters to go home.
Many details are still under investigation. For instance, what exactly some of Mr. Trump’s advisers, including Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani, were doing at a “war room” they set up that week in the luxury Willard Hotel.
Committee chair Bennie Thompson has also said there is evidence that some members of Congress were in touch with people who later took part in the riot, and even hosted them in congressional offices earlier in the week. But it is not yet clear how closely connected any of those legislators were to the eventual attack.
Lawmakers take shelter in the House of Representatives gallery as insurrectionists try to break in.Andrew Harnik/The Associated Press
Jennifer Rodgers, a former U.S. federal prosecutor who teaches at Columbia Law School, said much of what the committee has revealed so far is a more detailed version of the narrative that was already apparent: Mr. Trump engaged in a concerted effort to have the election overturned, which ultimately culminated with the riot.
“You put all this together, you see it’s all part of the same attempted coup, which started before election day when president Trump said if he lost it would be because of fraud, and ended after Jan. 6, when Congress finally certified the vote,” she said.
Complicating the committee’s job is Mr. Trump’s refusal to co-operate. He is currently fighting in court to prevent the investigation from accessing White House documents.
Both Mr. Bannon and Mr. Meadows have refused to testify before the committee, and each has been found in contempt of Congress by the House of Representatives. The Department of Justice laid a criminal contempt charge against Mr. Bannon, and is considering one against Mr. Meadows. Mr. Bannon is set to go to trial this summer.
The committee is expected to heat up in the coming months, when it plans a series of open hearings. By showing step by step how the events unfolded, the aim is to counter disinformation on the attack – supporters of the former president have alternately claimed it was actually a peaceful protest, or that it was secretly orchestrated by left-wing antifa agitators to make Mr. Trump look bad.
The committee’s report, expected by the fall, could provide evidence for further charges by Mr. Garland’s prosecutors, as well as civil lawsuits. It could also lead to legislation protecting the electoral process from political interference.
Just before the attack on the Capitol, Mr. Trump gave an incendiary speech near the White House to thousands of his supporters. Investigators are still looking into what he and his inner circle may have said in the buildup to Jan. 6 about overturning Mr. Biden's election.Evan Vucci and Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press
The former president and his party
He was impeached by the House, condemned by campaign donors and kicked off Twitter. But Mr. Trump has maintained his grip on his party.
Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who voted to impeach Mr. Trump and now serves on the select committee investigating Jan. 6, was dumped as caucus chair by her colleagues. An Ipsos poll this week found 71 per cent of Republican voters believe Mr. Trump actually won the 2020 election, despite no evidence for this.
In key swing states, meanwhile, Republican politicians are changing electoral rules to make it possible for state governments to overturn future elections. Georgia Republicans have given a Republican-led commission the power to replace election officials. In Arizona, the legislature is considering a law that would allow it to unilaterally revoke election certifications.
In this year’s midterm elections, Mr. Trump is backing a small army of candidates trying to unseat Republicans who refused to block Mr. Biden’s victory.
In Georgia, for instance, where Mr. Trump unsuccessfully pressed Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overcome Mr. Biden’s margin of victory, the former president is supporting a Republican challenger to Mr. Raffensperger’s renomination bid.
Mr. Eaton, the retired general, raised an even more alarming prospect: that renegade military members or units loyal to Mr. Trump could help him violently nullify the will of voters if the Democrats win again in 2024. In a Washington Post op-ed last month co-authored with two other retired generals, he pointed to analyses that show about 10 per cent of those charged over Jan. 6 were current or former military members.
“I’m afraid of a politically driven coup, possibly militarily supported. I’m afraid that we would have a better orchestrated Trumpian execution of what they tried to pull off on Jan. 6,” Mr. Eaton said in an interview.
Capitol police, then and now: At top, officers hold insurrectionists at gunpoint near the House chamber last year; at bottom, officers are briefed by Chief J. Thomas Manger on the day of the anniversary.Andrew Harnik/The Associated Press; Jonathan Ernst/REUTERS
The Hill and the police
Lawmakers are scheduled to hold a moment of silence Thursday to commemorate the attack, followed by reflections on that day from individual members of Congress. Afterwards, they will gather on the steps of the Capitol for a public vigil.
A year on, the government has spent US$30-million to repair the building and increase security at the Capitol, which suffered its worst day since British soldiers torched it in the War of 1812. The rioters broke windows and doors, and damaged paintings and statues with bear spray.
Other damages were far worse: 138 officers, from the Capitol Police and Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, were left injured by the attack. Some were beaten with lead pipes, others shocked with tasers, many sprayed with bear spray. They suffered brain trauma, heart attacks and cracked ribs.
One Capitol Police officer, Brian Sicknick, died of two strokes after being pepper-sprayed in the riot. Four more officers who had been at the Capitol that day later died by suicide.
A Trump supporter, Ashli Babbitt, was shot to death as she tried to breach a barricaded door to the Speaker’s lobby next to the House chamber. Another died of a drug overdose and two more of heart attacks. Michael Byrd, the Capitol Police lieutenant who killed Ms. Babbitt, was cleared of wrongdoing by the Department of Justice. Lieutenant Byrd told NBC News that he shouted repeated warnings at Ms. Babbitt before firing. Had he not shot her, he said, she and other rioters would have killed the House members who were fleeing down the hallway behind him.
Police leaders, meanwhile, are under increasing pressure to account for their failure to prepare for the riot.
An internal Capitol Police report found that the force had access to intelligence before the riot – showing Trump supporters discussing targeting Congress and sharing maps of the building online – but failed to act on it.
The force’s chief at the time of the riot, Steven Sund, has already resigned, as have both congressional sergeants-at-arms, Michael Stenger and Paul Irving. The select committee could push for further repercussions.
The National Guard, for its part, did not arrive at the Capitol until hours after the attack. A Senate committee report found that Mr. Stenger and Mr. Irving took no action to summon the Guard until after the riot started. Even then, military leaders demurred: In testimony to Congress, Mr. Sund has said that one Guard commander, Lieutenant-General Walter Piatt, told him he didn’t want to deploy troops because the optics would look bad.
It was not until he received orders from Mr. Pence, who was holed up in a secure bunker in the Capitol complex, that then acting defence secretary Chris Miller authorized the National Guard to be deployed.
Whatever changes police face, they will have to be part of a larger effort to ensure such a thing never happens again.
“It is an act of supreme political violence, to try to overturn the most precious political process we have in our country,” said Prof. Pape, the University of Chicago political scientist. “This is the biggest test of liberal democracy in our lifetime.”
In the shadow of Jan. 6: More reading
Joshua Roberts/Reuters
American divisions
Stephen Marche: 2022 is the year America falls off a cliff
Editorial: With Donald Trump lurking, is the U.S. sleepwalking toward calamity?
Canadian decisions
Thomas Homer-Dixon: The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare
Andrew Coyne: Chaos is coming to the U.S. What will Canada become?
A historic Canadian insurrection has uncanny parallels with the Capitol riot
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