January 6 crimes did happen. Court cases, video and thousands of pages of evidence prove it

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) —

In the federal courthouse in Washington, the reality of the case is undeniable. January 6, 2021Day after day, judges and jurors silently take in the chilling images and sounds from television screens showing rioters beating up police, smashing windows and hunting down lawmakers as democracy comes under attack.

But as he tries to reclaim the White House, Donald Trump continues to paint the defendants as patriots worthy of admiration. That claim is undermined by the truth established in hundreds of criminal cases, where judges and juries have reached opposite conclusions in what will go down as one of the darkest days in American history.

The cases have systematically documented — through testimony, documents and video — the crimes committed, the weapons used and the lives changed by physical and emotional damage. Trump is an advocate of a whole different storyHe portrays the rioters as hostages and political prisoners whom he says he may pardon if he wins in November.

“This is not normal,” U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, nominated by Republican President Ronald Reagan to the federal district court in Washington, wrote in court papers. “This cannot be normal. We as a community, we as a society, we as a country cannot condone the normalization of the January 6 Capitol riots.”

There are no television cameras inside the E. Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse on Constitution Avenue. But the real story of January 6 is in the reams of evidence and testimony that judges and juries have seen and heard behind the doors of the courthouse where hundreds of Trump supporters are have been convicted on the attack.

The Associated Press has spent more than three years tracking the nearly 1,500 cases brought by the Justice Department into the Capitol riots. AP reporters have hours of video footage and thousands of pages of court documents. They have watched dozens of court hearings and trials for the rioters who stormed the Capitol and temporarily halted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.

It is unclear whether Trump will ever face trial in the same court in the federal case in which he is accused of… illegally plotted to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the run-up to the violence. The Supreme Court’s ruling that former presidents broad immunity from prosecution means there will be no trial before the election. If he wins, he can appoint an attorney general who can ask for the case to be dismissed, or possibly order a pardon for himself.

According to Trump, the crowd on January 6th gathered peacefully to preserve democracy, not overthrow it, and the rioters were agitated but not armed. They were not insurrectionists, but rather “patriots” in the style of 1776. And now they are being prosecuted by the Justice Department, juries and judges for their political beliefs.

His tireless efforts to rewrite history have become fundamental to the Republican bid for a new term, with campaign rallies honoring the rioters as heroes while a national anthem plays in their name.

He was an invited guest at a “J6 Awards Gala” fundraiser at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, for those accused of crimes related to the riots. His campaign later said he would not attend the fundraiser, which was subsequently postponed. Organizers did not respond to requests for comment.

When pressed at a recent event, Trump said he would “absolutely” pardon rioters who attacked police — if they were “innocent.” When the interviewer noted that she was referring to convicted rioters, Trump responded that they had been convicted “by a very strict system.”

It is part of an effort to undermine confidence in the country’s legal system that has escalated since Trump’s conviction on 34 felony charges in his New York hush-money trial. In fact, it’s fueling a campaign of revenge that Trump says will come if he wins.

“Those J6 fighters, they were fighters, but they were really more than anything — they’re victims of what happened,” Trump said at a rally after his sentencing. He falsely claimed that the rioters were “set up” by police and appeared to threaten revenge: “That goes both ways, that goes both ways, believe me.”

In response to several questions from the AP about Trump’s support for the Jan. 6 suspects and his promise to pardon the rioters, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in an email: “The Kamala Harris and Joe Biden Department of Justice has spent more time prosecuting President Trump and targeting Americans who peacefully protested on January 6 than it has on the criminals, illegal immigrants and terrorists who commit violent crimes every day in Democrat-run cities.”

Many Republicans have joined Trump in downplaying the violence and spreading these lies: Police welcomed the mob into the building. Undercover FBI agents and left-wing antifa activists were the ones who instigated the attack. His running mate, J.D. Vance, has echoed Trump’s claims that the Jan. 6 suspects are being treated unfairly. In a 2022 social media post, he called them “political prisoners” and described their “imprisonment” as “an attack on democracy.”

The disinformation campaign has taken root across much of the country. About a year after the attack, only 4 in 10 Republicans remembered the attack as very violent or extremely violent, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll. Three years after the riot, a Washington Post-University of Maryland Poll About 7 in 10 Republicans thought too much emphasis was placed on it.

And now some of the same lawmakers who blamed Trump for the riots are backing his bid to return to the White House. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell supported Trump’s campaign this year after he condemned the former president as “morally responsible” for what McConnell called a “failed insurrection.”

More than 900 people have pleaded guilty to crimes, and about 200 others have been convicted at trial. More than 950 people have been convicted, about two-thirds of whom received prison sentences — sentences ranging from a few days to 22 years.

To be sure, not all members of the crowd turned violent. Hundreds of people who entered the Capitol but did not attack police or damage the building were charged only with misdemeanors. And the Justice Department has dropped obstruction of peace charges in some cases after the Supreme Court ruled reigned in June that prosecutors applied it too broadly.

Investigators captured a number of firearms in the crowd, along with knives, a pitchfork, a tomahawk axe, brass knuckle gloves and other weapons. One rioter was caught on camera to fire a gun into the air outside the Capitol. Others used improvised weapons to attack police, including flagpoles, a crutch and a hockey stick.

Judges and juries have heard police officers describe how they were brutally attacked while defending the building. In all, there were about 140 officers were injured that daymaking it “likely the largest single-day mass attack on law enforcement” in U.S. history, said Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.

Trump has said that no one was killed on January 6. In fact, a Trump supporter, Ashli ​​​​Babbittwas fatally shot by police as he tried to climb through the broken window of a barricaded entrance to the Capitol. Authorities the prosecutor acquitted of any wrongdoing after an investigation. Three other people in the crowd died from medical emergenciesAt least four officers who were in the Capitol later committed suicide. And Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick collapsed and died after fighting with protesters. A coroner later determined he died of natural causes.

Juries have watched videos of rioters calling for violence against then-Vice President Mike Pence and select lawmakers. They have seen far-right extremists in the lead-up to the riots, talk of civil war and revolution. They have heard congressional staffers describe how they ran for safety as the mob roamed the halls looking for then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others.

And judges have seen hundreds of rioters admit to breaking the law, many show remorse for falling for Trump’s stolen election lies — falsehoods he continues to spread. Some rioters have Trump’s rhetoric was defiantly parroted in court, with at least two suspects shouting “Trump won!” after they had learned their sentences.

Lamberth said that in his nearly four decades on the bench, he “cannot recall a time when such baseless justifications for criminal activity were common.”

“I was shocked to see how some public figures attempted to rewrite history, by claiming that rioters were behaving ‘in an orderly manner’ like ordinary tourists, or by torturing convicted January 6 suspects as ‘political prisoners’ or even, incredibly, as ‘hostages,’” the judge wrote in court documents.

“That is all ridiculous. But the Court fears that such destructive, misleading rhetoric could be a harbinger of even greater danger to our country.”