Five years after an insurrectionist mob, fueled by Donald Trump’s election lies, attacked the U.S. Capitol, many of those who remember and lived through the assault are pushing back against Republican efforts to send the violent riot down an Orwellian memory hole.
To that end, House Democrats are holding a hearing to highlight the Trump administration’s threats to free and fair elections; Democratic members have published a report, “One Year Later: Assessing the Public Safety Implications of President Trump’s Mass Pardons of 1,600 January 6th Rioters and Insurrectionists”; and Democrats are speaking out to remind the public that the crisis that began on Jan. 6, 2021, has never really ended.
As it turns out, GOP officials are also making some news related to the anniversary, although of a very different sort.
After the Jan. 6 attack, Congress agreed to install a permanent plaque to honor the law enforcement personnel who helped protect the U.S. Capitol against pro-Trump rioters. By statute, the plaque was to be placed on the western side of the building by March 2023 and list the names of those who served.
That deadline lapsed almost three years ago. The plaque is done and ready to be installed, but it’s reportedly sitting in a Capitol basement utility room surrounded by tools and maintenance equipment.
Architect of the Capitol Thomas Austin confirmed during a congressional hearing last year that the only thing standing in the way of installing the plaque is the approval from House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office — approval the Louisiana Republican has not extended for reasons he was reluctant to explain. (Austin also needed approval from Senate leaders, which he has already received.)
On the eve of the Jan. 6 anniversary, however, the House speaker elaborated on his position. The Associated Press reported:
[Speaker Johnson’s] office said in a statement late Monday the statute authorizing the plaque is ‘not implementable’ and proposed alternatives also ‘do not comply.’ The GOP leader has had quite a bit of time to come up with a coherent explanation for his refusal to honor the officers who protected the Capitol. This, evidently, is what he’s come up with. Meanwhile, two Jan. 6 police officers, former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and current Metropolitan Police Department Officer Daniel Hodges, filed a lawsuit last summer to force congressional leaders to follow the law. Donald Trump’s Justice Department weighed in on the case last month, telling a federal court to reject the litigation, though the case is still pending. For their part, many congressional Democrats have replicas of the plaque hung outside their Capitol Hill offices. If those same Democrats are in the majority after this year’s midterm elections, no one should be surprised if the real plaque is installed where it’s supposed to be in early 2027. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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