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 January 6, 2021, there is no official event to memorialise 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 on 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, Mr. Trump will meet privately with House Republicans at the Kennedy Centre, 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 honour Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt and others who died in the January 6 siege and its aftermath.
“I ask those that are able to attend please do so,” Mr. Tarrio said on social media feed X.
Mr. Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy for having orchestrated the January 6 attack, and is among more than 1,500 defendants who saw their charges dropped when Mr. 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,” Mr. Tarrio wrote.
The January 6 events, being held inside and outside, carry echoes of the split screen five years ago, as the House and Senate gathered to affirm the election results while the Trump supporters swarmed.
This milestone anniversary unfolds while attention is focused elsewhere, particularly after the U.S. military’s stunning capture of Venezuela’s President, Nicolás Maduro, and Mr. 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 said on the eve of the anniversary.
Also read: U.S. Capitol | The siege of a historical power centre
The Democratic leadership is reconvening the now-defunct January 6 committee to hear from police, elected officials and 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, was one of the two Republicans on the panel that investigated Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn Biden’s win. Ms. 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 to lead a new committee to probe other theories about what happened on January 6, rejected Tuesday’s session as a “partisan exercise” designed to hurt Mr. Trump and his allies.
Many Republicans reject the narrative that Mr. Trump sparked the January 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 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, who told investigators last month he believed someone needed to speak up for those who believed the 2020 election was stolen.
“The Capitol Complex is no more secure today than it was on January 6,” Mr. 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.”
Five people died in the Capitol siege and its aftermath, including Babbitt, who was shot and killed by police trying to climb through a door window near the House chamber, and Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick died later after battling the mob. Several law enforcement personnel died later.
The Justice Department indicted Mr. Trump on four counts in a conspiracy to defraud voters with his claims of a rigged election in the run-up to the January 6 attack.
Former Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers last month that the riot at the Capitol “does not happen” without Mr. Trump. He ended up abandoning the case once Mr. Trump was reelected President, adhering to department guidelines against prosecuting a sitting President.
Mr. 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 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.
Published – January 06, 2026 11:40 am IST
