A diminutive crowd of far-right activists marched on the Capitol on Tuesday, January 6, 2026, in a peaceful protest. They followed the march path five years ago when rioters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory. (Photo: Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON – Five years after a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, a citywide fight Tuesday over defining the event and assigning blame remained peaceful, if still disturbing.
A crowd of no more than a few hundred supporters of President Donald Trump commemorated the deadly attack with a somewhat subdued march from the Ellipse to the Capitol that stood in stark contrast to the riots five years ago.
Inside the Capitol, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives gathered in a diminutive conference room, apparently unable to secure larger rooms for an unofficial hearing that largely repeated the findings of a House committee that spent 2022 investigating the attack.
Meanwhile, Trump addressed House Republicans three miles west at the Kennedy Center. In a speech lasting more than an hour, he blamed then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for the violence that took place on January 6, 2021, and recommended that GOP lawmakers pass laws to make it harder to steal the election. Trump’s claim that his 2020 election loss was due to fraud sparked an attack in 2021.
“Our elections are skewed as hell,” he said, without citing evidence.
House Democrats Throw In Pardons
On Capitol Hill, during a morning event hosted by House Democrats that Republicans did not attend, lawmakers and experts criticized Trump’s pardon of those involved in the 2021 attack, one of his first actions after returning to office last year.
They also condemned his constant recasting of the day’s events.
White House officials launched approximately website on Tuesday, which blamed the attack on Democrats, including Pelosi, and repeated the lie that launched the attack: that the 2020 election, which Trump lost, was marred by fraud and should not have been certified.
“After January 6, the Democrats masterfully reversed reality,” we read on the website. “…In fact, it was Democrats who staged the real insurrection by confirming that the election was fraudulent, ignoring widespread irregularities, and arming federal agencies to pursue dissidents.”
At Tuesday’s hearing, Pelosi condemned Trump’s version of the attack.
“Today, the president who incited this insurrection continues to lie about what happened that day,” the California Democrat said.
Other Democrats and the witnesses they invited also described the pardon as a signal that the president had accepted — and even encouraged — his supporters to employ illegal means to keep him in power.
Brendan Ballou, a former U.S. Justice Department prosecutor who resigned shortly after Trump’s 2025 pardon, told the panel that the executive actions sent Trump supporters a “clear message” that they were above the law.
“The January 6 pardons also play into a larger narrative about what is happening to this administration, that if people are loyal enough and willing enough to support the president, both verbally and financially, they will find themselves beyond the reach of the law,” he added. “What that means is that literally for a certain group of people in America, the law doesn’t apply to them.”
Former ‘MAGA grandma’ testifies
The panel discussion was led by Democrat Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, and also included Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin of Maryland and several others.
The first panel of witnesses included Ballou, other experts and Pamela Hemphill, a former Trump supporter from Idaho who traveled to the nation’s capital five years ago to “be part of the crowd” supporting the president before becoming an advocate for a reckoning with today’s violence.
An emotional Hemphill, 72, once known as “MAGA Grandma,” apologized to Capitol Police officers.
“When I broke away from the MAGA cult and started learning about January 6, I knew what I did was wrong,” Hemphill told the panel. “I confessed to my crimes because I committed them. I was given due process, and the Department of Justice did not employ a weapon against me.
“Accepting a pardon would be a lie about what happened on January 6,” she added.
She explained her decision not to grant Trump a full pardon for criminals convicted of crimes related to the attack, saying it overshadowed the transgressions of those involved in the riot. She implored others not to accept revisions to the narrative of what happened during the attack.
Subsequent panels included current and former House members, including two, Republican Adam Kitzinger of Illinois and Democrat Elaine Luria of Virginia, who served on the committee tasked with investigating the attack.
Flowers for Ashli Babbitt
A crowd of marchers, including pardoned participants in the Jan. 6 attack, gathered tardy in the morning to retrace their path to the Capitol five years ago.
Organizers billed the march as a memorial event for Ashli Babbitt, who was killed by Capitol Police during the 2021 riots as she tried to break into the House Speaker’s lobby.
Far-right activists celebrating the fifth anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, marched in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, January 6, 2026, from the Ellipse to the Capitol. Rioters in 2021 attempted to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. (Video: Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
A crowd of about several hundred people marched from the Ellipse, where Trump addressed 2021 rally attendees, to just outside the Capitol grounds, where police held back a diminutive crowd on the lawn north of the Reflecting Pool.
Law enforcement officials allowed Babbitt’s mother, Michelle Witthoeft, and several others to come closer to the Capitol to lay flowers around 2:44 p.m. EST, the time they believe Babbitt died.
A group of counter-protesters briefly approached the demonstration, shouting “traitors.” Police quickly formed two lines between the groups, preventing any clashes.
Former Proud Boys leader on site
Among the crowd was former Proud Boys national leader Enrique Tarrio convicted to 22 years in federal prison for seditious conspiracy and other charges related to the January 6, 2021 attack. Asset he commuted Tarrio’s sentence after taking office for a second term.
As he watched the marchers, Tarrio told States Newsroom he was “just supportive.”
“It’s not my event. I’m just trying to help them organize and get people down the street, I guess. But we’re here for one purpose, and that is to honor the life of Ashli Babbitt and those who passed on that day.”
Asked if marchers also honored police officers who died in the days and months after the attack, Tarrio said he mourned “any loss of life,” but added: “I heard there were suicides. I don’t know. I didn’t really look into it. I was in jail.”
US Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was injured during the riot, According to to the Capitol Police. He died the next day of natural causes, According to to the District of Columbia Office of the Medical Examiner.
Four intervening police officers died commit suicide in the following days and months.
During the march, a group of Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police officers on bicycles stopped Tarrio and asked him to confirm the march route to avoid “confusion.”
When counterprotesters began harassing supporters of the January 6 attack, Tarrio waved to the marchers, saying, “Come on, come on, keep moving.”
Rasha Abual-Ragheb, 45, of New Jersey, a participant in the January 6 riots, earlier addressed the crowd and thanked “Daddy Trump” for pardoning her. Abual-Ragheb, who admitted to parading, demonstrating and picketing at the Capitol, showed off a tattoo on her arm that read “MAGA 1776.”
Willie Connors, 57, of Bayonne, New Jersey, stood at the edge of the crowd with a yellow “J6” flag tied around his neck. Connors said he did not enter the Capitol during the 2021 attack, but stated he was in the district that day to protest the 2020 presidential election, which he falsely claimed was “robbed” from Trump.
“Donald Trump, I will take a bullet for this man. He is my president,” Connors said.
