On Jan. 6, 2021, thousands marched on the Capitol of the United States at the urging of President Trump to “stop the steal,” the false allegation that the election had been stolen. Bipartisan state election officials concluded the election was free and fair, and all courts, including the Supreme Court, rejected claims that it wasn’t.
A handful of Capitol police officers tried to hold off rioters wielding pepper and bear spray, flagpoles, pipes, bicycle racks, batons and shields wrested from officers.
Police then turned to protecting lawmakers inside the Capitol, who were hiding under chairs or helping officers pile furniture against old wooden doors to keep rioters out until, in the early hours of Jan. 7, 2021, the election of former President Joe Biden was certified.
Associated Press reporter Mary Clare Jalonick was in the gallery in the House of Representatives five years ago, and she has since put together an exhaustive timeline of the entire day, hour by hour, sometimes minute by minute, piecing together transcripts and memories that lawmakers, rioters and police shared with her or with investigators.
She spoke with host Robin Young about her new book, “Storm at the Capitol: An Oral History of January 6th.”
4 questions with Mary Clare Jalonick
When you were in the House chamber, what memory do you carry?
“I guess when I think back on that day, I really think about a lot of the sounds that we could hear. It was such a chaotic moment. They were yelling at us to duck under the seats, the police who were there.
“I was still sort of trying to put my camera above the wall to capture what was going on below, because there were rioters who were trying to beat down the doors and get into the chambers. So that was such an extraordinary moment. I wanted to make sure that we got video of it because there weren’t any cameras on C-SPAN. Cameras had been turned off.”
It was shocking to read how much intelligence there was that day warning of militia members arming and heading to D.C. President Trump’s social media director, Dan Scavino, said, “Wait for the storm. The storm is coming now.” Protester Doug Jensen told the FBI, “That’s what Q said. Q always said when Trump said, ‘My fellow Americans,’ the storm is here, we’re supposed to go.” Trump, in his speech, rallying his supporters, said, “My fellow Americans.” That’s all Jensen needed. How many of these protesters sincerely said they believed they were being told to go?
“I think people really did sincerely believe a lot of that. If you talk to them today, some of them will acknowledge that they kind of fell down this sort of internet rabbit hole of lies. And a lot of them still believe that the election was stolen. There’s really a diverse group of people who were there that day.”
How did you feel about the police while reporting?
“The police always seemed the heart of the story to me. More than 140 of them were injured. And as one officer says in the book, it was probably more than that. But a lot of people just came to work the next day without complaint. And they were doubted afterward.
“Some people have falsely said police officers ushered the rioters in, when really, they were beaten, sometimes with American flags, and pushed past to break through windows and doors to get in and try to stop the count.
“A lot of the officers are still suffering to this day. Some of them haven’t gone back to work since then because of their injuries. Some of them who talked to me hadn’t really talked before about it, but really decided that it was important to be able to speak out. And there are a lot of them who haven’t said anything, understandably, because those who have spoken out have gotten a lot of backlash and a lot of people say they’re lying.”
What about the lawmakers? You have these moments where President Trump is calling them while they were under siege — dialing the wrong numbers, talking to the wrong lawmaker — and still trying to get them to overturn the election while they’re under attack.
“That’s right. Another senator, Republican Mike Rounds, recounted, sort of, the conversation he heard. And it was clear, Rounds said, that Trump was still trying to influence what they were going to do that day.”
How astonishing is it to you that some of these same Republican lawmakers, people like Texas Rep. Troy Nehls, who barricaded the House chamber door, is a former sheriff, was trying to talk rioters down, have since said there was no insurrection? And he’s not alone.
“Immediately afterward, there really was a pretty unified front, with everyone denouncing, at least denouncing the violence. And we’ve seen that fade for sure over the last five years, with a lot of people acting like there maybe wasn’t any violence at all or that it was overblown.
“And I think that is one point of the book I really do want to emphasize: It was a violent attack. And I did talk to a lot of Republicans who are in the book who did acknowledge it. Lindsey Graham is one. He is obviously a really close ally of Trump, but I have an interview with him in the book where he said, ‘yes, it was violent there. It was a dark day in the history of the country.’
“And that’s one of the points of the book — to put everything together and show it was a violent day, and a set of facts that most everyone put forward, including the rioters, which are pretty much the same in how things went down.”
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Click here to read a book excerpt.
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Lynn Menegon produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Catherine Welch. Robin Young adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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