Yet Another Jan. 6 Reflection

A year after the horrifying events of Jan. 6, the legislative branch prioritized political games rather than holding Trump responsible.

An often overlooked date in American history is March 4, 1801. This date is often overlooked because nothing considerably remarkable happened that day. It was on this day that a peaceful transition of power occurred between outgoing President John Adams and incoming President Thomas Jefferson. Adams wished to take on a second term, but lost a bitter election to his former friend Jefferson. Most of Europe expected there to be some form of contention, some form of violence or struggle in this transition. Afterall, Europe had a long tradition of transition of power occurring only after death or a defeat in combat. Yet, Adams willingly left the White House at 4 a.m. setting the precedent of peaceful transitions of power, undisrupted until January 6, 2021.

After losing the 2020 presidential election, President Donald Trump challenged the results in multiple states with frivolous lawsuits backed by unevidenced claims, all that either sided against him or were thrown out. Embittered and feeling humiliated by his electoral loss, Trump projected his aggravation nationwide to his supporters, summoning them to a “Save America” rally in Washington D.C on January 6. 

What happened that day is now branded in United States history as a domestic disruption of the democratic process and the transition of power. Trump, enraged that Vice President Mike Pence was aware that he did not have the constitutional authority to throw out state electoral results, directed his mob of supporters in attendance to march outside the Capitol building to pressure legislators and his own Vice President to stop the certification of the election results. 

A group of agitated and impassioned supporters arrived outside the Capitol, but didn’t stop there. They pushed back and rioted against the vastly outnumbered and unprepared Capitol Hill Police, killing Officer Brian Sicknick and wounding multiple others. They broke into the Capitol, some carrying zip-ties and others chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” The Vice President and both chambers of Congress had to flee the building while Trump supporters temporarily occupied the building and a barbarian Viking presided over the Senate. 

While many places invoke January 6 as a Republican attack, this emphasis is largely misguided. The attackers on the Capitol were surely all Trump supporters, but their targets were Democrat and Republican legislators alike. January 6 represents not the agenda of the Republican party, but the narcissism of Donald Trump. January 6, more than anything, was an attack on the legislative branch of government provoked by the executive branch. It was an attack on the institutions of our government, on democracy, and carries much more significance than simple partisanship.

Some conservative commentators and politicians, while recognizing the horrendous events of January 6, also allude to the riots of ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter during the summer of 2020 as the destruction and damage to private property and government building vastly outweigh that to the Capitol building. While the vandalism caused by these riots—not to be confused with actual protests that were occurring at the same time—were horrendous and devastating in their own right, the events of January 6 are immeasurably more significant, because the most monumental harms came not from property damage, but mass erosion to our founding institutions. 

A year later, much outrage is rightfully directed at this mob attack on the Capitol and the man chiefly—but not legally—responsible for the events of January 6, Donald Trump. Yet, upon simple reflection on recourse from those events, little was done to hold Trump responsible. Secs. Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao resigned from Trump’s Cabinet, but there was not enough support from the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, which would rule Trump unfit from office and remove him. 

Immediately, or even before, it became clear that the Cabinet did not have enough support to invoke the 25th Amendment, the House of Representatives should have drawn up and passed articles of impeachment. Ideally, this should have been done on the day of January 6, following Congress’ reconvening and certifying the electoral results. Instead, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) opted to play political games, passing a resolution on January 12, merely asking Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment. It was a fruitless effort on Pelosi’s behalf, knowing full well that there was not a majority of support within the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment even with Pence’s support. It acted no more as a political stunt that negated the urgency of meaningful action following January 6. 

The House finally passed articles of impeachment on January 13, a full week after the storming of the Capitol. Again, Pelosi prioritized politics over accountable action. The articles of impeachment used overcharged rhetoric, accusing Trump of “inciting an insurrection,” a legal term that would not hold up in Court, and ultimately cost several Republican votes for impeachment. Then, when it came time for Pelosi to name impeachment managers, she opted to go with a fully partisan team of nine Democrats, one of whom, Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD), objected to the electoral certification of the 2016 election results. 

After the articles of impeachment passed the House, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) refused to have a vote on it until the new Senate took office. Allowing President Trump to finish his term represented yet another failure of the legislative branch to hold responsibility to its governmental counterpart. However, the thin silver lining was that without a deadline, the Senate was allowed to conduct an investigative impeachment trial to find out more on Trump’s involvement on January 6. 

Yet once again, politics prevailed over responsible action, this time from the Senate Democrats. On February 13, Democrats voted against bringing in witnesses for the impeachment trial, orchestrated under significant pressure by new Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). The excuse for not bringing in witnesses to conduct a full trial offered by Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) was “people want to get home for Valentine’s Day.” 

Currently, the legislative branch has not relinquished all responsibility for investigating the events on January 6. The House approved a select committee to investigate this anniversary, but bipartisan trust in this committee is hard to find, thanks to yet another political ploy by Speaker Pelosi. 

The committee was to consist of eight members appointed by Speaker Pelosi, but only five members appointed by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). While to her credit, Pelosi used one of her appointments to select Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), she ended up unilaterally rejecting all five appointments offered by McCarthy. The committee, with Democrats outnumbering Republicans seven to two (Pelosi later named Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), is able to conduct needed investigations into the events leading into January 6, but it is far from the accountable action needed from the legislative branch. Of course, any bias from this select committee is also the fault of many Republicans in Congress, who ultimately voted to reject a fair and completely bipartisan committee similar in style to the one created to investigate 9/11. 

Many commentators, pundits, and politicians describe January 6 as the near-death experience of democracy in the United States. This is not true. As horrendous and vicious the temporary overtaking of the Capitol was, democracy would have prevailed because democracy in the United States is able to withstand mobs. Even if the barbarians within the Capitol were able to hold it for an extended period of time, Congress would have just reconvened elsewhere to certify the results. 

Such exaggeration isn’t necessary to depict the malicious threat to democracy on January 6. The problem with January 6 isn’t that the mob almost overthrew the democratic process, the problem is that they attempted to do that. Any attack on our founding institutions must hold those responsible, and demonstrate that such an attempt—feasible or not—must have repercussions. When given the opportunity to hold Trump responsible for his actions, to remove and bar him from public office, the legislative branch balked at every chance. Its leaders from Pelosi and Schumer to McConnell and McCarthy, ceded legislative responsibility to play political games instead. Reflecting on its first anniversary, failure of the legislative branch to have substantive action is yet another stain on American history and could set a devastating precedent.