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Inside Washington’s federal courthouse, there’s no denying the reality of Jan. 6, 2021. Day after day, judges and jurors silently absorb the chilling sights and sounds from television screens of rioters beating police, shattering windows and hunting for lawmakers as democracy lay under siege.
But as he seeks to reclaim the White House, Donald Trump continues to portray the defendants as patriots worthy of admiration, an assertion that has been undercut by the adjudicated truth in hundreds of criminal cases where judges and juries have reached the opposite conclusion about what history will remember as one of America’s darkest days.
The cases have systematically put on record — through testimony, documents and video — the crimes committed, weapons wielded, and lives altered by physical and emotional damage. Trump is espousing a starkly different story, portraying the rioters as hostages and political prisoners whom he says he might pardon if he wins in November.
“This is not normal," U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who was nominated to the federal bench in Washington by Republican President Ronald Reagan, wrote in court papers. “This cannot become normal. We as a community, we as a society, we as a country cannot condone the normalization of the January 6 Capitol riot.”
There are no broadcast television cameras inside the E. Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse on Constitution Avenue. But the real story of Jan. 6 is found in the reams of evidence and testimony judges and juries have seen and heard behind the doors of the courthouse where hundreds of Trump’s supporters have been convicted in the attack.
The Associated Press has spent more than three years tracking the nearly 1,500 Capitol riot cases brought by the Justice Department. AP reporters have reviewed hours of video footage and thousands of pages of court documents. They have witnessed dozens of court hearings and trials for the rioters who descended on the Capitol and temporarily halted the certification of President Joe Biden's victory.
It’s unclear whether Trump will ever stand trial at the same courthouse in the federal case alleging he illegally schemed to overturn his 2020 election loss in the run-up to the violence. The Supreme Court’s ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution means a trial won't happen before the election. If he wins, he could appoint an attorney general who could seek dismissal of the case, or potentially order a pardon for himself.
In Trump's telling, the mob on Jan. 6 assembled peacefully to preserve democracy, not upend it, and the rioters were agitated but not armed. They were not insurrectionists but rather 1776-style “patriots." And now they are being persecuted by the Justice Department, juries and judges for their political beliefs.
His relentless attempts to rewrite history have become foundational to the Republican's bid for another term, with campaign rallies honoring the rioters as heroes while an anthem plays in their name.
He was an invited guest for a “J6 Awards Gala” fundraiser at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, for those charged with crimes connected to the riot. His campaign later said he wouldn’t attend the fundraiser, which was then postponed. Organizers did not respond to requests for comment.
When pressed during a recent event, Trump said he "absolutely" would pardon rioters who assaulted police — if they were “innocent." When the interviewer noted she were talking about convicted rioters, Trump replied that they were convicted “by a very tough system.”
It’s part of an effort to undermine faith in the nation’s justice system that has escalated since Trump's conviction on 34 felony charges in his New York hush money trial. Even more than that, it’s fuel for a campaign of vengeance Trump says will come if he wins.
“Those J6 warriors, they were warriors, but they were really more than anything else — they’re victims of what happened,” Trump said in a rally after conviction. Falsely claiming the rioters were “set up” by police, he appeared to threaten revenge: “That blows two ways, that blows two ways, believe me.”
In response to several questions from the AP about Trump's support of the Jan. 6 defendants and pledge to pardon the rioters, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in an email: “Kamala Harris and Joe Biden’s Department of Justice has spent more time prosecuting President Trump and targeting Americans for peacefully protesting on January 6th than criminals, illegal immigrants, and terrorists who are committing violent crimes in Democrat-run cities every day."
Many Republicans have lined up behind Trump to minimize the violence and push these lies: Police welcomed the mob into the building. Undercover FBI operatives and left-wing antifa activists instigated the attack. His running mate, JD Vance, has echoed Trump's claims that Jan. 6 defendants are being treated unfairly, referring to them in a 2022 social media post as “political prisoners," and describing their “captivity” as "an assault on democracy.”
The disinformation campaign has taken root in a vast swath of the country. About a year after the attack, only about 4 in 10 Republicans recalled it as very violent or extremely violent, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll. Three years after the riot, a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found about 7 in 10 Republicans said too much is being made of it.
And now some of the same lawmakers who blamed Trump for the riot are supporting his bid to return to the White House. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell endorsed Trump’s campaign this year after condemning the former president as “morally responsible” for what McConnell called a “failed insurrection.”
Over 900 people have pleaded guilty to crimes, and approximately 200 others have been convicted at trial. More than 950 people have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds getting time behind bars — terms ranging from a few days to 22 years.
To be sure, not all members of the mob engaged in violence. Hundreds of people who went into the Capitol but did not attack police or damage the building were charged only with misdemeanors. And the Justice Department has dropped a felony obstruction charge in some cases after the Supreme Court ruled in June that prosecutors applied it too broadly.
Investigators have documented a number of firearms in the crowd, along with knives, a pitchfork, a tomahawk axe, brass knuckle gloves and other weapons. One rioter was captured on camera firing a gun into the air outside the Capitol. Others used makeshift weapons to attack police, including flagpoles, a crutch and a hockey stick.
Judges and juries have heard police officers describe being savagely attacked while defending the building. All told, about 140 officers were injured that day, making it “likely the largest single day mass assault of law enforcement” in American history, Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney for D.C., has said.
Trump has said no one was killed on Jan. 6. In fact, a Trump supporter, Ashli Babbitt, was fatally shot by police while trying to climb through the broken window of a barricaded Capitol doorway. Authorities cleared the officer of any wrongdoing after an investigation. Three other people in the crowd died of medical emergencies. At least four officers who were at the Capitol later died by suicide. And Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick collapsed and died after engaging with the protesters. A medical examiner later determined he died of natural causes.
Juries have watched videos of rioters calling for violence against then-Vice President Mike Pence and select lawmakers. They've seen far-right extremists in the run-up to the riot talk of civil war and revolution. They’ve heard congressional aides recount running to safety as the mob roamed the halls in search of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others.
And judges have watched hundreds of rioters admit to breaking the law, many expressing remorse for falling for Trump's stolen election lies — falsehoods he continues to spread. Some rioters have defiantly parroted Trump’s rhetoric in court, with at least two defendants shouting “Trump won!” after learning their sentences.
Lamberth said in his nearly four decades on the bench, he "cannot recall a time when such meritless justifications of criminal activity have gone mainstream.”
“I have been shocked to watch some public figures try to rewrite history, claiming rioters behaved ‘in an orderly fashion’ like ordinary tourists, or martyrizing convicted January 6 defendants as ‘political prisoners’ or even, incredibly, ‘hostages,’” the judge wrote in court papers.
“That is all preposterous. But the Court fears that such destructive, misguided rhetoric could presage further danger to our country.”
