The fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection passed with little note this week, as events in Venezuela, the economy and even chatter about Greenland consumed public attention. It didn't go entirely unobserved. House Democrats held an unofficial hearing on the issue.
President Trump has since won a second term and embarked on a bold, multifaceted effort to remake American society, government and foreign policy. So, why does the invasion of the U.S. Capitol in the waning days of the first Trump presidency still matter?
Former Republican U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois served on the House Jan. 6 Committee. Kinzinger got his start in public service as a McLean County Board member. He represented Congress in a northern Illinois district.
At the hearing, Kinzinger testified it is important to remember what happened. He said efforts to weaken democracy have continued beyond what happened five years ago, even into today.
"The persisting threat to our nation lies in how Donald Trump and his allies have manufactured an alternate reality of conspiracies to support their violent siege of our democracy. It's simple. They want to rewrite history," said Kinzinger.
The counter argument runs, if it mattered that much, how did President Trump get re-elected? Move on.
Kinzinger said he gets asked all the time, why is he still going on about Jan. 6? Can't he just let it go? He said if the country had achieved real accountability, he could let it rest. He asked how the nation can ensure votes matter if it bows to the narrative of a President who incites an insurrection, denies doing it, and then pardons the invaders of the capitol.
Kinzinger said another question he hears a lot is, what did the Jan. 6 committee accomplish?
"My kid and my grandkid and his grandkid will know the truth of what happened on that day. Because while the Department of Justice was not allowed to finish their investigation, because the president knew exactly what they had and he made them drop it, the only living record is the Jan. 6 committee and I am proud of our work," said Kinzinger.
Kinzinger was one of two Republicans on the committee, along with Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, who has also since left Congress.
Kinzinger also criticized GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson for refusing to put up a plaque in the capitol honoring the D.C. Police and Capitol Police who tried to hold the line against rioters.
"The plaque is very simple. You don't have to say that Donald Trump won or lost 2020. All you have to say is D.C. Metro and Capital Police did a hell of a job defending this capital that day," said Kinzinger.
Without them, he said that bad day would have been much different and much worse. He mused about the possibility Speaker Johnson is politically afraid and offered advice to Democrats.
"I say double the size of it [the plaque] when you guys put it up," said Kinzinger.
Kinzinger said his fellow Republicans have repeatedly hit him with a conspiracy theory that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or the mayor of Washington, D.C. refused to activate the National Guard on Jan. 6. The president controls those forces. He said it's ironic that now, President Trump is proud to announce he's in control of the D.C. Guard when he wants soldiers to patrol capitol streets.
Raoul testifies
That's not the only place the president has deployed the National Guard. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul testified a reason Jan. 6 remains important is to protect the rule of law.
Raoul has filed 48 lawsuits and more than 100 amicus briefs to combat Trump administration sallies on a variety of issues including education, the environment, privacy, public health, birthright citizenship tariffs, state sovereignty and public safety. The throughline from Jan. 6 to those cases, Raoul said, is executive overreach.
Raoul said the militia clause of the Constitution and the Posse Comitatus Act should prevent the military from acting in civilian matters. He said since the country's founding there have been efforts to prevent executive overreach, even coming from big government advocate Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper number 29.
"That just the suggestion that one state's militia could be sent to another state for the purpose of political retribution was inflammatory and that it is impossible to believe that a president would employ such preposterous means to accomplish their designs. Yet that is exactly what President Trump did," said Raoul.
Raoul said Jan. 6 is a today-issue because of the 6-3 Supreme Court ruling that deployment of the military to execute the laws is exceptional, and the government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois. He said that's important in California, Oregon and across the nation.
Raoul said he collaborates with Republican Attorneys General on consumer protection and other issues but he’s disappointed that that does not happen so much on executive overreach, despite traditional GOP values emphasizing the 10th amendment and state sovereignty.
“Congress, you all have put conditions on making sure that critical cancer research, Alzheimer’s research at [the National Institutes of Health] is appropriately funded. This does not only impact research institutions in blue states, but it also impacts research institutions in red states," said Raoul.
Raoul said there are a few encouraging signs there could be limits to an imperial view of the office of the president. Raoul said although Supreme Court Justices did not address the critical issue whether courts can review presidential decisions to deploy the military, many people have missed footnote four in the case.
"Justice Kavanaugh taking a step backwards from his prior position that, in essence, race can be used as a notion for immigration stops. And that he took the time in that footnote to explicitly take a step back gives me a sense of hope," said Raoul.
Witnesses at the hearing said the follow-on to Jan. 6 has had a dangerous and chilling effect on democracy and on armed forces. They cited Defense Department efforts to punish U.S. Senator and former astronaut Mark Kelly for publicly affirming soldiers do not have to obey unlawful orders.
Former Rep. Kinzinger, a military veteran, has encouraging words for those in the armed forces who look at that example and fear for federal workers targeted by the administration.
"This is all going to get better in a year, and three years. These are different increments of how much better it's going to get, I believe. And someday we're going to look back and four years is going to seem like nothing. We always know in history it seems like nothing. But we lose this fight if we get discouraged and we get exhausted," said Kinzinger.
Kinzinger said the battle is to stay engaged through the midterm elections next year and the 2028 presidential election cycle.
