Shadow of January 6 Riot Poisons Trust in a Divided Washington

Nearly three years after a mob tore through the Capitol, the Jan. 6, 2021 riot is an open wound in Congress. It has ruptured working relationships and left an undercurrent of tension that haunts lawmakers in ways big and small.

It loomed significantly during one of the most dramatic moments of the year, the House speaker fight, including when Democrats supported the push to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Asked why they distrusted McCarthy so deeply, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) answered sharply, “I was here on January 6.”

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) scoffs at what he says is Democrats’ inability to move on.

“That’s three years ago. I mean, seriously?” Clyde said. “It’s old news. That is the only thing they have: bring up January 6, bring up January 6. We have got to get past that, they have got to get past it and deal with the current issues of our country right now.”

Despite the passage of time, however, Jan. 6 is in many ways regaining prominence. Former President Donald Trump is mounting another presidential campaign — while suggesting he would pardon the rioters and still falsely claiming he won in 2020.

Key allies have gained newfound power and prominence, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and they’ve used their influence to try to rewrite the narrative of the attack. And Trump and some of his supporters face upcoming criminal trials, putting a spotlight back on their efforts to undermine the will of the voters.

For Democrats, memories of the violent attempt to overthrow a lawful election have poisoned trust with many Republicans. A new study found a dramatic drop in cooperation between Democrats and the dozens of GOP House members who voted to throw out the electoral votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Fury from that day also came up repeatedly during the fall battle over the House speakership — including around Jordan’s nomination and Johnson’s surprising ascent.

The new speaker was close to the events of Jan. 6 as they unfolded. During the House debate on Arizona’s electoral votes, Johnson, wearing a surgical mask and Louisiana pin, gave a floor speech opposing the certification of the state’s electors. As Trump refused to concede and grasped for any thread insinuating that the election was stolen, Johnson pointed to the Constitution, saying that election procedures adopted in Arizona and Pennsylvania amid the pandemic weren’t properly approved by their legislatures.

There’s no evidence the changes led to any significant fraud or improper votes, and the procedures survived formal court challenges in both states. But the stand by Johnson and other Republicans would have erased every vote from Arizona and Pennsylvania, more than 10 million in all.

“We’re supposed to support and defend the Constitution. That’s what we do here today,” Johnson said. “I urge everyone to do the right thing.”

He was the last Republican to complete his remarks before chaos took hold.

Within 10 minutes of his conclusion security officers rushed key leaders off the floor and McGovern, presiding over the chamber, called a recess that would last through hours of fighting. Other lawmakers stuck in the chamber hid behind chairs and donned gas masks.

More Power for Trump Allies

Johnson is perhaps the most prominent example of how Republicans who pushed to keep Trump in power have gained influence and visibility.

The new speaker, who had also urged fellow Republicans to join a Texas lawsuit challenging the results in four key states, is now second-in-line to the presidency. While in a 2021 statement provided by his office he called rioters “a lawless mob of criminals,” last month he began releasing security footage from the attack, a nod to those who say the violence has been overstated to fuel political talking points.

“We want the American people to draw their own conclusions. I don’t think partisan elected officials in Washington should present a narrative and expect that it should be seen as the ultimate truth,” Johnson said last week, referring to the videos previously released by the House’s Jan. 6 investigative committee.

He added that as the videos are made public, aides will blur people’s faces “because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged,” by the Department of Justice. (A Johnson spokesman later said the DOJ already has all the security footage and the blurring is to protect people from “non-governmental actors”).

Jordan, one of the Republicans most intensely involved in trying to overturn the results, now leads the powerful House Judiciary Committee and came within a few dozen votes of becoming speaker. Last week he used his perch to subpoena records from the House’s Jan. 6 investigative committee and Fani Williams, the Fulton County, Georgia district attorney prosecuting Trump for trying to reverse her state’s election results.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has adorned fund-raising appeals and sold $20 mugs with a famous image of him flashing his fist in solidarity with protesters outside the Capitol. Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), another of the leading Republicans pushing to overturn the results, this year chaired the House Freedom Caucus, the hard-right group that exerts significant influence over the GOP agenda.

“What we have now is a bunch of election deniers in leadership who, if given unfettered opportunity, I think will cause mischief in elections next year. So Democrats and other right-thinking people will have to be very vigilant,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who chaired the House’s Jan. 6 investigation.

“Part of our daily life”

Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.) was one of those ducking down behind the chairs in the House gallery as rioters closed in. She still has nightmares.

“My husband comes running in and I’m screaming and shaking all over because I fear for my own personal safety,” she said. “And then I fly down here every week and work with these same people. It’s not normal.”

Security footage shows Kuster and a handful of other lawmakers guided by police out of the gallery roughly 30 seconds before a trio of intruders enter into the hallway. More than a dozen others protesters show up a short time later.

“Nobody has ever told the story about how close they came,” Kuster said. “Even our Republican colleagues, they don’t understand why our feelings about this run so deep.”

The riot’s effects are still rippling out.

It has fractured Republicans, ending the careers of some of the party’s biggest names, while elevating those loyal to Trump. Some lawmakers announcing their retirements have cited Jan. 6 as a factor in their decisions, while others avoid talking about it or have downplayed its severity. And sometimes, the insurrection arises in simple everyday moments.

When Kuster was having coffee in the House dining room last month, and one of Washington’s many protests was building nearby, a service worker told her it put him on edge, stirring memories of hiding his staff during the riot.

“We can’t move on,” Kuster said. “It’s part of our daily life working here.”

She and some other Democrats who once vowed not to work with Republican election deniers say they’ve softened their stances, given the realities of a divided government. But Jan. 6 left an indelible mark.

“Over time I had to go through my own process and realize that I can’t let my anger consume me. So I came to a different place where I could talk to them, I could interact with them, I could even collaborate with them on certain issues,” said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), who is retiring next year. “But I could never see them in the same light. They will never be afforded the same level of respect that I once afforded them.”

Kildee was also in the gallery as rioters smashed windows and security officers blocked the door, drawing their guns. He underwent therapy to deal with the post-traumatic stress of the experience.

Dropping Cooperation

The personal divide is most acute in the House, where a significant majority of Republicans — 139 of 209 voting on Jan. 6 — voted to throw out results from Arizona, Pennsylvania or both, compared to just eight senators.

A study released in October found evidence that many of those Republicans have since been shunned by Democrats.

Of the bills introduced by House members who voted against Arizona’s or Pennsylvania’s results, only 23% had a Democratic cosponsor in the 2021-2022 Congress — down from 56% and 59% the two previous Congresses.

And while most of the bills in question are small, they’re the kind of measures that typically draw bipartisan support and quietly pass, said Jason M. Roberts, a University of North Carolina political scientist who co-authored the study with James Curry, of the University of Utah. The inability to collaborate on those measures makes it harder to build the relationships needed to work together on bigger issues.

“This group of people has a much smaller pool of people willing to work with them,” Roberts said. “These smaller things build trust. And if you don’t have trust you can’t work together.”

A Republican Purge

As Trump allies have risen up, his Republican critics have been driven into the political wilderness. That’s left the GOP even more aligned with a faction that Democrats see as irredeemable.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), a hard-right lawmaker, was the latest example. He announced his retirement last month, citing the GOP’s embrace of false narratives around the election and the riot. He followed the defeats or departures of others like Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), once the House’s third-ranking Republican, and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), a one-time rising star.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), a former presidential nominee who stared at Hawley with barely concealed rage after the riot and later voted to convict Trump in the ensuing impeachment trial, is retiring. Hawley shows no signs of going anywhere.

Like many Republicans, Hawley framed his Jan. 6 objection as a protest of election procedures — including those in Pennsylvania that had already withstood legal challenges. The lawyerly arguments on the House and Senate floor, however, also came amid a slew of wider conspiracy theories and a months-long effort by Trump and his allies to overthrow the results by any means.

“I’m not going to run away from the position that I took on that day,” Hawley said when asked about using his Jan. 6 photo for fund-raising. “It’s wrong to change the laws in the midst of an election, and I think that the right forum to challenge that for a member of Congress is here, according to the law.”

Kildee believes Jan. 6 isn’t an isolated incident. He sees it as a symptom of a wider shift toward chaos, disregard for the truth, and lust for power at all costs.

“January 6 is this really poignant moment,” Kildee said, “but it’s inseparable from all these other less notorious acts that we’ve seen these last several years.”