WASHINGTON— Inside the Capitol, reminders of the violence are increasingly hard to find.
Scars on the walls have been repaired. Windows and doors broken by the rioters have been replaced. And there is no plaque, display or remembrance of any kind.
Lawmakers rarely mention the attack, and many Republicans try to downplay it, echoing President-elect Donald Trump’s claims that the carnage of that day is overblown and that the rioters are victims.
In some ways, it’s like the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, that shook the foundations of American democracy, never happened.
“It’s been erased,” said Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt. “Winners write history and Trump won. And his version is that it was a peaceful gathering. Obviously completely untrue.”
If Trump pardons rioters, as he has said he will do after taking office Jan. 20, that would be “putting an exclamation point on his version of what happened,” Welch said.
Some of the 1,250 defendants convicted of crimes after Jan. 6 called for the deaths of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Mike Pence, who was Trump’s vice president, as the mob violently overran police and breached the building. Some carried weapons, zip ties, chemical irritants, Confederate flags as they ransacked the Capitol and hunted for lawmakers. They sought to stop the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s win over Trump, echoing the Republican incumbent’s false claims that the election was stolen.
But the disruption was only temporary. Congress resumed work that evening and completed its constitutional role.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges after Jan. 6, said “it was a very, very dark time.” Some lawmakers, she said, “do want to really put that behind us.”
There are different reasons for that, however.
Former Republican Sen. Mike Braun, a frequent Trump ally who left Congress this year and was elected Indiana’s governor, said many in the party think the Justice Department “was weaponized disproportionately against” some rioters. He said many lawmakers who were in the Capitol on Jan. 6 want as much distance as possible between then and now.
“I think all of us remember it,” Braun said. But, he added, “If you’re starting to put plaques up, it looks like it even further emphasizes the divide on the issue. And maybe the biggest remedy is just to keep moving forward.”
The plaque that never happened
Congress passed a law in March 2022 to require “an honorific plaque listing the names of all of the officers of the United States Capitol Police, the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies and protective entities who responded to the violence that occurred at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
The Architect of the Capitol was ordered to obtain the plaque within a year and permanently place it on the Capitol’s western front, where the worst of the fighting took place.
But almost three years later, there is no plaque. It’s unclear why or who is responsible for it. A spokeswoman for the Architect of the Capitol referred questions to the House Sergeant at Arms, who did not respond to requests for information.
Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer of New York and then-Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky signed off on the plaque, according to a Senate leadership aide who was familiar with the process but was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York has also been supportive. A spokesman for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., did not respond to requests for comment.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who led the House Administration Committee when the law was enacted, wrote Johnson in May to ask why the plaque hadn’t been installed. “If there is a reason for the delay, I look forward to any information you can share to that end and what is being done to address it,” Lofgren said.
She never heard back.
“It’s not just the plaque, although it does mean something to the officers who were there, but the fact that no one cares about them enough to comply with the law and acknowledge the sacrifice that they made for us and for our country,” Lofgren said. “That service to their country, it’s been disrespected.”
New York Rep. Joe Morelle, now the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, said refusing to display the plaque is part of an effort to “deny Jan. 6 happened and the harm it caused to the U.S. Capitol Police force.”
