Five years ago, on Jan. 6, I was inside the U.S. Capitol as a large mob started breaking windows and climbing inside the building to try to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.
A fierce battle began raging on the West Front of the Capitol between supporters of President Donald Trump and Capitol Police officers, who tried desperately to fend off thousands of people.
The officers were struck with flagpoles, their own police shields and essentially anything the mob could get its hands on. They were also hit with various types of chemical sprays, including bear spray.
Inside, across the hall from where I was reporting, alarmed members of Congress got on the ground in the tight aisles of the U.S. House gallery, trying to protect themselves.
While the president and some members of Congress have sought to downplay what happened that day, make no mistake — it was a riot. At least 140 law enforcement officers were injured, and one died a day later.
A woman who climbed through a broken glass door outside the House chamber, as lawmakers fled, was fatally shot. Supporters of the woman, Ashli Babbitt, have sought to make her a martyr and plan to return to D.C. on Tuesday.
Chaos in the Capitol corridors
I was trying to sort out all the developments while reporting from my broadcast booth, which is across from the House Chamber.
The Capitol went into lockdown and the outer doors of the area where I work with other Capitol Hill reporters and producers were all locked to protect us. Only later did I learn that a group of the people roaming and rampaging through the Capitol ended up just a short distance down the hall from where I was broadcasting.
The people who invaded the Capitol were soon everywhere: the Rotunda, Statuary Hall and the Senate Chamber, where lawmakers had been only a short time before, tallying the results from the Electoral College.
When I looked out a window on the west side of the Capitol, I could see and hear the thousands of Trump supporters. Many of them climbed up the scaffolding that had been set up for President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Ultimately, Capitol Police told those of us in the press gallery that we had to evacuate. We were hustled through the underground tunnels that connect the Capitol to the House and Senate office buildings.
My group eventually made it to a room in the Rayburn Office Building, where we continued to report.
Eventually, we were allowed to return to our broadcasting booths to cover the certification of the election results in the wee hours on the morning of Jan. 7. Even then, Capitol Police knocked on my door, letting me know a bomb-sniffing dog needed to go through the area.
Five years later, a lot has changed
More than 1,500 people were charged with a wide range of crimes related to Jan. 6, in the largest Justice Department investigation in history. With the stroke of a pen, Trump pardoned them when he returned to the White House earlier this year.
Many of the federal prosecutors who worked on the cases of those accused have since been fired or forced out of their positions.
The president and many Republicans sought to discredit a bipartisan investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, suggesting it was done to damage Trump’s image. House Republicans established a select subcommittee last year to carry out their own investigation into Jan. 6.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, who represents Maryland’s 8th District and is the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wants to make sure that people don’t forget what happened on Jan. 6. This week, he released two reports ahead of the Jan. 6 five-year anniversary.
One of the reports states that 33 individuals pardoned for Jan. 6 have since been convicted of, charged or arrested with other crimes.
Raskin also released a document titled “Myths vs. Facts: January 6th.”
