Fifth anniversary of Jan. 6 attack to include Capitol ceremony, House hearing

WASHINGTON — The fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol will be marked Tuesday with a ceremony on the steps of the building, a series of marathon speeches on the Senate floor and a special House hearing recounting the events of the day — all events organized by congressional Democrats.

Five years after a crowd of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol looking to upend the certification of his 2020 presidential loss, the attack remains a partisan flashpoint with lawmakers split on how to mark the day.

Trump, back in office for nearly a year, has moved quickly to recast the day as one where his supporters were "unjustly" prosecuted for supporting him.

He has pardoned more than 1,500 defendants tied to the violent day, dismissed or demoted dozens of Department of Justice lawyers who led the prosecution of the so-called J6 defendants and threatened to prosecute former Special Counsel Jack Smith, whose Biden-era investigation led to Trump’s 2023 federal indictment on charges he and his allies attempted to subvert the 2020 election results.

Smith ultimately withdrew the charges after Trump was reelected, citing the precedent of not prosecuting a sitting president.

"I pardoned J6 people who were assaulted by our government," Trump told reporters last February, a month after issuing the pardons. 

Trump is scheduled to address House Republicans Tuesday in Washington at their annual winter retreat, but the White House has not announced any commemorative events for the day.

Democrats on Tuesday will observe the attack’s anniversary with a series of events aimed at drawing attention to what transpired that day and to highlight the pardoned defendants who have since been arrested for other violent crimes over the past year.

"We must never forget the horrors of Jan. 6 and will continue to honor the brave law enforcement officers who were injured and lost their lives defending the rule of law in the United States," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) wrote in a memo to House Democrats last week.

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove), who was evacuated from the House chamber the day of the attack, said he welcomed the hearing Democrats have organized.

"As one of the last people to leave the House chamber during the storming of the Capitol, that day is permanently seared into my memory," Suozzi told Newsday in an interview. "It was a frightening and shameful moment for our democracy, one that can never be normalized and must never be allowed to happen again."

Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville) said in a statement that there should be equal condemnation for the attack on the Capitol and the series of 2020 riots that occurred in the aftermath of the police-involved death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

"Jan. 6 and the politician- and media-induced riots of 2020, that caused almost $2 billion in damage to public property and resulted in about two dozen deaths, were wrong, and those who condemn one but ignore the other play politics with public safety," LaLota said.

Rep. Laura Gillen (D-Rockville Centre) in a statement to Newsday said: “The anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack is a stark reminder that our democracy is fragile and that we all have a duty to defend it."

Newsday's Billy House contributed to this story.

By Laura Figueroa Hernandez

laura.figueroa@newsday.com@Laura_Figueroa

Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.