Washington, DC — The following is a new Substack post from America’s Voice editor Gabe Ortíz and Research Associate Yuna Oh. Read “Five Years Later, The Chaos and Violence of Jan. 6 Is Now Nationwide” on AV’s Substack and find in full below:
“This week marks five years since Donald Trump pushed bigoted lies about the 2020 presidential election in order to direct a violent mob to the U.S. Capitol and attempt to overturn a race he’d indisputably lost. This coup attempt – the most brutal attack on the nation’s capital since the burning of Washington by British troops during the War of 1812 – led to the assault of over 140 police, with four officers who responded to the attacks that day subsequently dying by suicide.
But while Trump quickly faced a second, unprecedented impeachment by the House of Representatives on a charge of incitement of insurrection, he was acquitted by the Senate despite Special Counsel Jack Smith explicitly stating during Congressional testimony last month that Trump “was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him.”
The Jan. 6 attack, Trump’s subsequent mass pardons of 1,600 insurrectionists, and his administration’s ensuing attempt to erase the facts around this day are a reminder that those who are actually raining chaos and lawlessness upon our country are not immigrants, but instead an ascendant right-wing movement that has embraced white nationalism and nativism, while trampling on the freedoms we hold dear.
We have seen this play out in the chaotic, disorderly year since Trump’s return to power one year ago this month. Immediately after taking office, Trump and mass deportation architect-in-chief Stephen Miller rescinded common-sense immigration enforcement guidelines that formerly prioritized individuals who were deemed to be a risk to public safety and instead made loving moms and dads, U.S. military veterans, DACA recipients, and college students who dared to have a personal opinion a prime target for kidnapping by masked and armed federal agents who believe themselves to be unaccountable.
Few spaces that are a part of the everyday lives of all Americans have been spared from this state-sponsored havoc. Masked and armed agents have invaded homes, businesses, public parks, airports, medical facilities, school drop-offs, day care facilities, and church grounds in order to fulfill Miller’s quotas, with tens of thousands detained despite having no criminal record at all. In a Trump-era trend dubbed “Kavanaugh stops” by observers, hundreds of individuals brutalized and detained for days and even weeks have included American citizens. “Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents,” ProPublica reported. “They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear.”
But these “Kavanaugh stops” aren’t the only disturbing trend to have emerged since last year. ICE’s dysfunction has also inspired bad actors to impersonate mass deportation agents in order to carry out their violent crimes, which has become so pervasive that even Trump’s own FBI has issued a warning.
Meanwhile, as the administration has been lying to the American public by claiming that its masked agents have been targeting the so-called “the worst of the worst,” Trump actively endangered our communities by issuing blanket pardons or clemency to roughly 1,500 supporters who invaded and ransacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Among insurrectionists freed by Trump and complicit allies in Congress include a number individuals who have, in just one example, committed horrific crimes against children, according to two new reports from House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (MD-08).
“At least 33 pardoned insurrectionists have now been convicted of, charged with, or arrested for additional crimes since the violent attack on the Capitol,” one report said. “The crimes committed by rioters before and after the insurrection include: child sexual assault, production of child pornography, possession of child pornography, rape, conspiracy to commit murder of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, kidnapping, sexual assault, aggravated robbery, reckless homicide, driving under the influence causing death, illegal possession of firearms, domestic violence by strangulation, burglary, vandalism, grand theft, stalking, violation of protective orders, threatening public officials, and drug trafficking.”
The Justice Department, which initially pursued accountability against these criminals under the previous administration, has itself been infiltrated by Jan. 6 co-conspirators under Trump, the report continues.
“Astonishingly, President Trump appointed Ed Martin—a direct participant in the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement, January 6th attendee and primary architect of the January 6th revisionist narrative—as U.S. Pardon Attorney. Mr. Martin’s appointment in May 2025, after a failed bid for confirmation as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, was the final act in the evisceration of the Pardon Attorney’s office as a professional and nonpolitical decisionmaker in the clemency process.”
“Mr. Martin, who tweeted from the Capitol grounds himself on January 6th and described that violent day as ‘Mardi Gras in D.C.,’ has been a fervent January 6th apologist,” the report continued. “He had spent the years prior to his appointment raising cash for the very January 6th offenders President Trump has let out of jail.”
The message of these pardons and dysfunction of government agencies like ICE and the Justice Department make it clear: chaos and vigilantism on behalf of Trump will not be punished, but instead rewarded.
One year later, we can clearly see that Jan. 6 was a foreshadow to what was to come in Trump’s second term and demands for accountability for those who not only led the attack but also inspired it should have been taken more seriously and urgently. This fifth anniversary of the most brutal attack on our democracy in two centuries should serve as yet another reminder that the attacks on our freedoms and very way of everyday life started before Trump began his second term – and that it’ll be up to us to protect the values we hold dear.”
