The US will relive this Thursday the violent assault on the Capitol a year ago, which still reverberates in the minds of public opinion in the country, by a mob of far-right supporters of former President Donald Trump, dozens of whom already face penalties of prison.
On January 6 of last year, some 10,000 people – most of them Trump sympathizers – marched towards the Capitol and some 800 broke into the building to prevent the victory of now president Joe Biden from being ratified, against Trump, a Republican candidate in the United States. November 2020 elections.
The images went around the world and showed the fragility of American democracy.
A year later, the tragic day, which left 5 people dead and 140 officers injured, continues to mark much of the political agenda in the United States and further increase the polarization between Republicans and Democrats.
To underscore the importance of the commemoration, Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris, will give speeches.
“The president is going to speak about the truth of what happened, not the lies that some have spread since then, and the danger that it has posed for the rule of law and our democratic government system,” said the White House spokeswoman. Jen Psaki, at a press conference on Tuesday.
For her part, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has announced a series of “reflection” and “remembrance” events at the Capitol in the US capital.
The goal, Pelosi stressed in a letter sent to Democratic lawmakers, is for them to serve as a “renewal of commitment, in a spirit of unity, patriotism, and prayer.”
As a result of the assault, central Washington was militarized for months with the deployment of thousands of members of the National Guard.
TRUMP WILL KEEP SILENT
The great absence tomorrow will be that of Trump, who canceled at the last minute a press conference from his private residence in Mar-a-Lago in which he planned to comment on what happened.
“In light of the complete bias and dishonesty of the Non-Elected Democratic Committee on January 6, two failed Republicans and the Fake Media, I am canceling the press conference on January 6,” he said in a statement without offering further details.
Trump was referring to the legislative committee, with a Democratic majority, that is leading the investigation into the events surrounding the break-in on Capitol Hill.
The assailants went to the Legislative headquarters in Washington after attending a speech by Trump in which he harangued them to protest before the Capitol for “electoral theft”, a complaint filed without evidence and that was dismissed by different judicial instances in several states of the country.
A few days after leaving the White House in January 2021, the former president faced impeachment on the charge of “inciting an insurrection,” of which he was ultimately acquitted.
MORE THAN 700 DEFENDANTS
To date, the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia has charged more than 700 individuals, residents across the United States, for crimes ranging from physically attacking police officers to impeding the exercise of their duties. functions, going through destroying government property and entering a restricted-access building.
Of them, only about 150 have agreed to plead guilty, according to data from the US Department of Justice, which has indicated that the process is still underway.
Among them, one of those who represented one of the iconic images of the assault: the man disguised as a bison and self-proclaimed “shaman of QAnon”, Jacob Chansley, who last November was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
However, several Democratic legislators have criticized the action by the Department of Justice, which they accuse of lack of efficiency and ambition given the magnitude of what happened.
One of them, Ruben Gallego, considered that the performance of the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, has been “extremely weak” in assuring that there should be “many more of the organizers detained now” in statements to CNN this week.