Four years ago on Monday, hundreds of Donald Trump supporters egged on by the man himself stormed the U.S. Capitol, staging a violent insurrection to try to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election. A bipartisan Senate report on the events of January 6 found that nine people died as a result. But, while Joe Biden did become president and a peaceful transfer of power unfolded, it's hard to call it a "failed" insurrection at this point.
In approximately two weeks, Trump will again be sworn in as president, and he’s promised to issue pardons for Jan. 6 rioters facing charges and serving prison sentences within the “first hours” of his second term. He’s called the riot a “day of love” and described those facing criminal charges or prison sentences for the insurrection “hostages” and “patriots.” The newly sworn in 119th Congress includes 157 election deniers—a slight drop from 172 in the 118th Congress, but still an appallingly high number. The entire Republican House leadership (Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, Conference Chair Lisa McClain, and Chair of the House GOP Policy Committee Kevin Hern) consists of election deniers. Ten of 27 GOP governors are election deniers, as well as nine of 28 GOP attorneys general and four of 26 GOP state secretaries of state (who oversee statewide elections in their states).
There are multiple sources to blame for this: the right-wing media ecosystem; tech companies with perverse incentives; a unique, terminal strain of believing that everything will be OK. But we especially can blame the Biden administration's four years of inaction.
Under Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland focused his attention on individual Jan. 6 rioters, rather than the man who instigated the riot (Trump) or the people who have continued to push Trump's lies (the nearly 200 election deniers who remain in office). Federal prosecutors have charged more than 1,580 defendants with crimes tied to the insurrection; more than 1,000 have pleaded guilty, over 200 have been convicted at trial, and according to the Department of Justice, 1,100 defendants’ cases have been fully adjudicated, while hundreds have already completed prison terms.
Many, if not all, of these individuals could potentially see their records expunged or be released from prison within days. Trump has said there “may be some exceptions” to his pardons for Jan. 6 rioters “if somebody was radical, crazy," but that the “vast majority” of defendants shouldn't be in jail. Only those with less power have been punished for their actions on Jan. 6—and the total lack of accountability for the former president ultimately left the door wide open for truth of what happened that day to be essentially erased once Trump takes office. That's because he's tapped former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to head his DOJ and former defense official Kash Patel to be FBI director; together, Bondi and Patel would have the authority to shut down federal investigations of the Jan. 6 riot altogether—and they’re expected to do so.
Speaking to HuffPost, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said it was a “fatal mistake” for Biden’s DOJ to selectively prioritize some individual Jan. 6 cases while taking no action to hold the "high-level" insurrectionists—Trump and his top allies—accountable. Former House Judiciary Committee chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) candidly told the outlet that, as he sees it, “Merrick Garland wasted a year.” He argued that Garland didn’t begin to prosecute rioters until “he was in effect forced” to by the findings of a House committee investigating the attack, even though all “the evidence the Jan. 6 committee used was available from the beginning.”
“Had they proceeded with those prosecutions, I think [Trump] would have been convicted and we’d have a different president now,” Nadler said.
One could argue inaction from the Biden administration gave us a second Trump term in more ways than one. For starters, there’s the general path of inaction or insufficient action his administration took on a host of policy areas, from abortion access to court reform to Israel's war in Gaza. Or his refusal to step down from the Democratic ticket earlier, of course. All of this certainly helped Trump win reelection. But ultimately, Trump was only able to run and win at all because he faced no consequences for trying to overthrow the U.S. government on Jan. 6, 2021. The same can be said of the large swaths of Republican members of Congress who supported his attempted coup, and also have yet to face accountability; instead, they're comfortably set up to help him carry out his horrific second term agenda.
Biden's presidency will be defined by an overarching fecklessness, a refusal to do anything that could be seen as a "political attack" on Trump or at odds with Biden's dated vision for bipartisanship. That has handed us another Trump presidency—and with it, the inevitable whitewashing of a chilling day in U.S. history.
