Don’t Let Trump Whitewash the Truth About Jan. 6

History, the saying goes, is written by the victors.

That particular flex is in motion today, the fourth anniversary of the Jan. 6 siege at the US Capitol. The timing and the symbolism couldn’t be more telling — and for some, of course, more worthy of being forgotten.

President-elect Donald Trump will also be returning soon to the Capitol steps, the scene of myriad crimes on Jan. 6, 2021, that have led to some 1,250 convictions. His inauguration will take place there two weeks from today, a couple miles east of the Ellipse — where the insurrection began after he gave a speech urging his followers to “take back their country.”

The Jan. 6 legal verdict has largely been rendered. The Supreme Court ruled last year that Trump (and all presidents) are entitled to a generous though ill-defined immunity from criminal prosecutions for “official acts” while in the White House. Then Trump won the 2024 election. Those combined developments prompted the Justice Department to reconsider and then drop its Jan. 6 prosecution of Trump.

The political verdict has also been delivered. A narrow plurality of voters — 49.9% for Trump compared with 48.4% for his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris — returned Trump to the White House in November, undeterred by his efforts to sabotage the 2020 election results. He also painted the Electoral College red, while Republicans regained control of the Senate and snared the slenderest of holds on the House. Trump has remade the GOP in his image, and he strides, for now, like a Colossus within it. It is worth noting that Congress will gather today to certify the election, with no Democrats attempting to cast serious doubts about its outcome.

The historical verdict about Jan. 6 will take longer to solidify amid continuing, and possibly endless, battles over its resonance. That verdict will be less dependent on carny fabulism, sophistry, electoral expediency and brass-knuckle electioneering than its legal and political counterparts, though it won’t be entirely insulated from those forces, either.

Still, Jan. 6 deserves a long historical tether because it was significant, threatening, and its meaning should be grounded in facts. That narrative— which also included ham-handed and allegedly criminal efforts in several states to undermine the 2020 election — transcends the moment. History is what we tell ourselves about ourselves. Hence, all of Trump and his advocates’ recent efforts to memory-hole or whitewash what happened four years ago at the Capitol — and to target Republicans and Democrats who investigated the foundations of the insurrection.

The events of that day were searing.

Rudy Giuliani, a former law enforcement official and mayor, warmed up the Ellipse crowd by telling them it was time for a “trial by combat.” When Trump arrived, he delivered a ludicrous “Save America” speech claiming that the 2020 election had been riddled with fraud and stolen from him. He assured the crowd that he loved them. They shouted back that they loved him, too. He urged them to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol to have a word with legislators certifying the election. And they marched.

Trump’s followers breached police lines and swarmed the Capitol, eventually breaking windows, occupying offices, defecating in hallways and storming the Senate floor. About 140 police officers were assaulted, and one rioter was shot. Legislators from both parties, and Trump’s vice president, fled for safety while the president watched the siege unfold on a White House TV. He waited until the end of the day to tweet a video calling on rioters to abandon the Capitol but has never stopped lying about the election being fraudulent.

Trump seems set on pardoning most, if not all, of those convicted of Jan. 6 crimes once he becomes president. His glide path toward that decision has been made gentler by Joe Biden’s recent decision to pardon his son, but Trump would have likely pursued pardons regardless. Jan. 6, in Trump’s universe, involved well-meaning supporters and tourists who just got a bit antsy. Pardoning them helps remove an unwanted stain of criminality that has clung to that day as well as to Trump’s brief, vibrant and sordid political career.

Trump moves on. It’s one of his great political and personal strengths. He’s certainly the luckiest man alive, but he’s also a determined survivor. That survival, however, is due in no small part to deceit and distraction. As always, the era he is shaping challenges the rest of us to avoid the same path and preserve fundamental values and institutions.

Rewriting history to sanitize it, and compelling that its truths be forgotten, is the handiwork of authoritarians. We care about history, and study it, so we can make better decisions and move forward. Trump will have his presidency and the agenda he and his party want to pursue. That shouldn’t come at the expense of the truth — or our memories.

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