WASHINGTON – Some lawmakers emotionally recalled the violence. Others said they’d rather move on. And some said it wasn’t violent at all.
The certification Monday of Donald Trump’s presidential victory further exposed the divide, and the tension, among members of Congress over Jan. 6, 2021 — as Trump has called the bloody attack by his supporters “a day of love” and has promised to pardon rioters who have been convicted of crimes related to that day once he is in office.
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Unlike four years ago, when the joint session of Congress to count electoral votes was interrupted by rioters trying to break down the doors, there was very little drama this Jan. 6 and no overt tension in the room as lawmakers read out each state’s electoral votes. Vice President Kamala Harris gaveled down her own defeat. Democrats did not object to any of the votes.
Standing beside windows where Trump’s supporters first broke into the building that day, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats want to “serve as an example” for Republicans.
The Democrats lost last year's election, Schumer said, but “when you lose an election you roll up your sleeves and try for the next one. You don’t deny that you lost.”
The rioters who violently breached the Capitol four years ago, breaking in after a brutal fight with police, were echoing Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen and that President Joe Biden’s win was “rigged.” Trump maintained — and still maintains — that he won the election even though it was certified by all 50 states and courts across the country reaffirmed Biden’s win.
Four years later, the Republican Party is still divided over the attack. On Monday, as they gleefully certified Trump’s win, some GOP lawmakers made a point of downplaying the violence four years ago, defending the more than 1,250 rioters convicted of crimes.
Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., posted on X early Monday morning that “individuals entered the Capitol, took photos, and explored the building before leaving,” and have since been “hunted down” and treated unjustly. Just after the joint session ended, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., repeated her plea that all of the rioters be pardoned and said “this country should never allow this type of abuse of our justice system again.”
Other Republicans remembered the day differently — a signal that Trump’s pledge to pardon rioters could become politically fraught even within his own party. It’s unclear, so far, whether he will try to pardon all of them or just those who were not violent.
“I was here,” said Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies. “Ask the cops who got beaten up. Not everybody was violent, but there was definitely violence, and the people who defiled the Capitol and attacked police officers, they deserve to be held accountable.”
Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said that “the violence that occurred on that particular day, I will not forget.”
“It was real,” he said. “And we have to recognize that was a very, very bad day in our country’s history.”
More common are Republicans who don’t want to talk about it at all.
“That was a long day and I don’t want to rehash it,” said Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, who was then in the House and helped blockade the doors as rioters tried to beat them down. He said he hadn’t talked about it since the one-year anniversary of the attack.
“That’s in the past for me,” Mullin said. “I tell people all the time, you can’t drive out the rearview mirror.”
New Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters, “I was here, and I’ve said what I have to say about that day, and I’m now looking forward.”
On possible pardons, “it’s going to be a call that the president has to make,” Thune said.
Democrats marked the fourth anniversary by remembering their own experiences that day, and preparing for Trump's return to office.
Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson said after the session that he was angry that they were there to certify Trump’s win after what happened last time.
“We performed our perfunctory duty,” Johnson said. “It should have been perfunctory four years ago. I’m angry that it was not.”
Johnson was trapped in the House gallery with other Democrats who were spacing out in the chamber amid the coronavirus pandemic. The group was trapped as people tried to beat the doors down below, and ducked below seats as rioters hunting lawmakers were rattling the doors behind them.
Some members of that group — who have dubbed themselves the “gallery group” — gathered for a photo Monday. Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal posted the photo on X.
“We will not forget,” she wrote.
Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, one of the hundreds of police officers who fought the rioters four years ago, sat in the gallery on Monday as Congress certified Trump’s win, a guest of California Sen. Adam Schiff.
Hodges, who was captured on video crushed between two doors as some of the rioters beat him, said he found this year’s proceeding to be “very dry” — like it should have been four years ago, he said.
Otherwise, he was marking the day by doing his job, like many of the other officers who spent the day protecting the city and members of Congress.
“I was at work before this and I’m going back to work afterward,” he said.