5th Anniv. of Jan 6 Brings New Division01/06 06:16

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Five years ago outside the White House, the outgoing 
President Donald Trump told a crowd of his supporters to head to the Capitol -- 
"and I'll be there with you" -- in protest as Congress was affirming the 2020 
election victory for Democrat Joe Biden.

   A short time later, the world watched as the seat of U.S. power descended 
into chaos, and democracy hung in the balance.

   On the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021, there is no official event to 
memorialize what happened that day, when the mob made its way down Pennsylvania 
Avenue, battled police at the Capitol barricades and stormed inside, as 
lawmakers fled. The political parties refuse to agree to a shared history of 
the events, which were broadcast around the globe. And the official plaque 
honoring the police who defended the Capitol has never been hung.

   Instead, Trump will meet privately with House Republicans at the Kennedy 
Center, which the president has rebranded to carry his own name, for a policy 
forum. Democrats will hold a hearing with witnesses to the violence and later 
gather on the Capitol steps to mark the memory of what happened.

   And the former leader of the militant Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, is staging 
a midday march retracing the rioters' steps from the White House to the Capitol 
to honor Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt and others who died in the Jan. 6 siege 
and its aftermath.

   "I ask those that are able to attend please do so," Tarrio said on social 
media feed X.

   Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy for 
having orchestrated the Jan. 6 attack, and he is among more than 1,500 
defendants who saw their charges dropped when Trump issued a sweeping pardon on 
his return to the White House last year. "This will be a PATRIOTIC and PEACEFUL 
march. If you have any intention of causing trouble we ask that you stay home," 
Tarrio wrote.

   Echoes of 5 years ago

   The Jan. 6 events, being held inside and outside, carry echoes of the split 
screen five years ago, as the House and the Senate gathered to affirm the 
election results while the Republican president's supporters swarmed.

   This milestone anniversary unfolds while attention is focused elsewhere, 
particularly after the U.S. military's stunning capture of Venezuela's 
president, Nicols Maduro, and Trump's plans to take over the country and prop 
up its vast oil industry, a striking new era of American expansionism.

   "These people in the administration, they want to lecture the world about 
democracy when they're undermining the rule of law at home, as we all will be 
powerfully reminded," House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said 
on the eve of the anniversary.

   Democrats revive an old committee, Republicans lead a new one

   The Democratic leadership is reconvening the now defunct Jan. 6 committee to 
hear from police, elected officials and regular Americans about what they 
experienced that day.

   Among those expected to testify is former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, 
who along with former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming were the two Republicans on 
the panel that investigated Trump's efforts to overturn Biden's win. Cheney, 
who lost her own reelection bid to a Trump-backed challenger, is not expected 
to appear.

   Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, who has been tapped by House 
Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana to lead a new committee to probe other 
theories about what happened on Jan. 6, rejected Tuesday's session as a 
"partisan exercise" designed to hurt Trump and his allies.

   Many Republicans reject the narrative that Trump sparked the Jan. 6 attack, 
and Johnson, before he became the House speaker, had led challenges to the 2020 
election. He was among some 130 GOP lawmakers voting that day to reject the 
presidential results from some states.

   Instead, they have instead focused on security lapses at the Capitol -- from 
the time it took for the National Guard to arrive on the scene to the failure 
of the police canine units to discover the pipe bombs found that day outside 
Republican and Democratic party headquarters. The FBI arrested a Virginia man 
suspected of placing the pipe bombs, and he told investigators last month he 
believed someone needed to speak up for those who believed the 2020 election 
was stolen, authorities say.

   "The Capitol Complex is no more secure today than it was on January 6," 
Loudermilk said in a social media post. "My Select Subcommittee remains 
committed to transparency and accountability and ensuring the security failures 
that occurred on January 6 and the partisan investigation that followed never 
happens again."

   The aftermath of Jan. 6

   Five people died in the Capitol siege and its aftermath, including Babbitt, 
who was shot and killed by police while trying to climb through the window of a 
door near the House chamber, and Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died 
later after battling the mob. Several law enforcement personnel died later, 
some by suicide.

   The Justice Department indicted Trump on four counts in a conspiracy to 
defraud voters with his claims of a rigged election in the run-up to the Jan. 6 
attack.

   Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers last 
month that the riot at the Capitol "does not happen" without Trump. He ended up 
abandoning the case once Trump was reelected president, adhering to department 
guidelines against prosecuting a sitting president.

   Trump, who never made it to the Capitol that day as he hunkered down at the 
White House, was impeached by the House on the sole charge of having incited 
the insurrection. The Senate acquitted him after top GOP senators said they 
believed the matter was best left to the courts.

   Ahead of the 2024 election, the Supreme Court ruled ex-presidents have broad 
immunity from prosecution.