Snapshot: Accountability and Telling the Truth
On this fifth anniversary of the J6 Capitol attack, let's resolve that we will hold the criminals accountable when our current dark chapter is over
On February 13, 2021, Mitch McConnell told the truth. On this fifth anniversary of the deadly J6 Capitol attack, it’s worth reading what the former Senate Majority Leader said that day on the Senate floor—and also remember that he had just voted to acquit Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection.
January 6 was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of domestic business they did not like. Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president.
They did this because they’d been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth, because he was angry he’d lost an election. Former President Trump’s actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty…There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day, no question about it.
The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. And having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole, which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth…
The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things.
The day Mitch McConnell told the truth, 57 senators voted to convict Donald Trump of inciting insurrection, including seven Republicans. Yet the cynical, power-hungry McConnell was not one of them, helping to ensure that the Senate would not reach the 67 votes needed to convict.
He claimed, along with 42 other GOP senators, that it was unconstitutional to try a president after he left office, despite historical precedent. The refusal to hold Trump accountable that day with a conviction, which would have barred him from ever holding public office again, opened the door for the tragedy that now besets our nation.
There are many examples in the days before and after the Republicans’ cowardly acquittal of Trump that helped create the conditions for Trump’s eventual return to power. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s infamous ring-kissing trip to Mar-a-Lago just three weeks after the insurrection—despite previously asserting that Trump “bears responsibility” for the J6 violence—was particularly egregious.
But the words in May of 2021 by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, then McConnell’s deputy, encapsulated the partisan attitude that helped undermine justice being served. “Anything that gets us rehashing the 2020 elections, I think, is a day lost on being able to draw a contrast between us and the Democrats’ very radical left-wing agenda,” he said, opposing the creation of a commission to investigate J6.
While we look back on that singularly shameful day in our nation’s history and the consequences of Republicans acquitting Trump in the weeks that followed, let’s strengthen our resolve that we will not just move on when the current dark and criminal chapter is over.
Our recent history tells us that the truth must come out, justice must be served and the criminals among us must be held accountable. That’s the only way America really can move on and progress.
For further reading, here are a handful of earlier essays about J6:
The Terrorism of the Capitol Attack: The importance of calling the insurrection by its name. (3/8/21)
Confronting the Violence of January 6: We saw it with our own eyes. That should be enough for all Americans to want justice. But the partisan warfare has blinded far too many of us from basic humanity. (1/6/22)
Threats, Lies and the Continuing Impact of January 6: Three years on, the insurrection continues to fuel shameless GOP extremists bent on taking power by any means necessary. (1/6/24)
The Power of Propaganda: On this fourth anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, we cannot forget the truth of what happened that day. (1/6/25)
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Thank you for your heartfelt writing , Steven. Mitch McConnell’s truthful comments about Trump’s culpability rang hollow on that February day, because he chose NOT to join the 57 other Republicans who wanted to hold the former president accountable for his treasonous attempt to overthrow the 2020 Election. If Mitch would have had the integrity and courage to use his role as a leader in service to our country, he would have saved us from the daily toxic damage we are enduring right now.
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine not ONLY the heartbreak of January 6, but the denial of that political earthquake that has tried to blind us to its painful truth. The attempted coup is still active. We’re in the fight for our lives as Americans. I fear that the song of the American democracy we all aspired to has been forgotten. It is an old melody and its notes are flat and faded. It was catchy and widely shared in our not too distant past. Now no one even remembers how to sing, much less how that tune went.
Add to the insult the pardoning of January 6 insurrectionists, some of whom are determined to seek reparations. All the while we have ignored the bravery and sheer intestinal fortitude of our brave and bloodied Capitol police.
There is so much to say and so much left unsaid. The Capitol may have been cleaned since that fateful day, but not scrubbed of the evil that permeates the walls, like so much smoke still left after the fire has been extinguished. I, for one, will remember that day. I will remember the day before that day, and all the years before, when, in spite of our differences, democracy, the rule of law, and decency ultimately prevailed.
This is the first time I can say I remember ‘when’…so that when we are subsumed by this Russian-backed effort to bury the truth about the day, I will, for now, still be a living witness to what happened on January 6. I will continue to witness to the truth about what we have lived and are living. “The truth is marching on.”