AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Since President Trump returned to office, his administration has actively tried to erase government information about the January 6, 2021, attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol. Now on the fifth anniversary of the attack, NPR is preserving the history of that day. We've created a public archive, featuring hundreds of videos submitted as evidence, a timeline of events and our own searchable database of those cases, plus a two-part podcast on that day and the aftermath. NPR investigations correspondent Tom Dreisbach joins us now. Good morning.
TOM DREISBACH, BYLINE: Good morning, Ayesha.
RASCOE: A lot of people saw footage from January 6 live, or they watched the hearings in Congress. What more was there to uncover about this story?
DREISBACH: Well, part of the reason we're undertaking this project is 'cause we're at this really striking moment with the public's understanding of what actually happened. You know, the government is actively trying to rewrite this history. Five years ago, right after it happened, there was kind of a consensus. Republicans like Senator Ted Cruz called it an act of domestic terrorism. So did the FBI. Even Trump himself said the rioters, quote, "defiled the seat of democracy" and must, quote, "pay." Five years later, Trump has now given mass pardons to more than 1,500 January 6 rioters. And those pardons applied to all of the most violent people, people who brutally assaulted police officers. Trump even calls them great patriots. And when he was asked why he included the violent rioters who assaulted cops, he denied that they had committed violence. Here's what he said last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I pardoned J6 people who were assaulted by our government. That's who assaulted. And they were treated unfairly. There's never been a group of people in this country, outside of maybe one instance I can think of, but I won't get into it, that were treated more horribly than the people of J6. So, no, I didn't assault. They didn't assault. They were assaulted.
DREISBACH: In reality, hundreds of defendants did commit violent assaults. But the administration is trying to change reality as people understand it. The Justice Department deleted records of those cases. They scrubbed references to January 6 as a riot. They fired dozens of prosecutors who worked on those cases, and they even hired a former January 6 defendant at the Justice Department, a guy who called cops Nazis and loudly yelled that the rioters should kill the cops. So with all those actions to rewrite this history, we thought it was really important to just ground people in the facts. And with all these 1,500 court cases, we have this massive trove of evidence, thousands of videos that we reviewed that show parts of the riot that most people have never seen.
RASCOE: So what can you tell us about what you found in those records?
DREISBACH: Well, part of it is just busting some of the myths that I hear all the time, even today. One of those most persistent myths is that, oh, it was just a rally and some people got riled up. But the evidence shows people planning for violence, bringing weapons. There's this video of one rioter. His name was Russell Taylor, and he sent this video to his friend.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RUSSELL TAYLOR: All right, guys, getting my loadout bag. I got the carbon fiber knuckles, matching hatchets and a little bit of excitement.
(SOUNDBITE OF STUN GUN BUZZING)
DREISBACH: That sound was a stun gun, and Taylor later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct Congress. Other rioters brought loaded guns - firearms. And then on January 6, when rioters actually did use violence, a lot of them were talking about how it was time for revolution, for civil war, to hang Mike Pence, the then-vice president, and Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House at the time. And here's just a few things that rioters said. These are all taken from the court exhibits.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED RIOTER #1: If the government is no longer for the people, it is your right, nay, it is your duty to overthrow that government.
UNIDENTIFIED RIOTER #2: That's right.
UNIDENTIFIED RIOTER #3: They attacked us first, so we stormed the building.
UNIDENTIFIED RIOTER #4: Traitors will be shot. Pence...
UNIDENTIFIED RIOTER #5: We're coming.
UNIDENTIFIED RIOTER #4: ...We're coming. We...
UNIDENTIFIED RIOTER #5: This is war.
UNIDENTIFIED RIOTER #4: It's war.
DREISBACH: We should say here that leaders of two extremist groups, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, they were convicted of seditious conspiracy against the United States. They received the most serious prison sentences of any defendants, and then Trump came to office and freed them all.
RASCOE: It's been almost a year since the rioters received pardons. What are they doing now?
DREISBACH: You know, it's such a big group of people, more than 1,500 defendants, so it really varies. Some are threatening revenge, like the former leader of the Proud Boys. His name is Enrique Tarrio. Some are really just struggling to get by. They can't find work. One of them told me he had the scarlet eye of insurrection on him. But several have gotten into more legal trouble. One man is facing criminal charges for allegedly threatening to kill Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader. Another man has been charged with child molestation, and one of his victims is allegedly an 11-year-old. I asked the Trump administration about those cases, and a White House spokeswoman told me we were spreading, quote, "left-wing talking points" and that the defendants, they said, were aggressively over prosecuted for political purposes.
RASCOE: What about the police who defended the Capitol? People might have heard the statistic that a hundred and forty police officers were injured in the attack. What does the evidence that you looked at show when it comes to the police officers?
DREISBACH: First and foremost is just the brutality of the violence. You know, there's countless videos and images of officers struggling to breathe from pepper sprays or what's called bear spray. They're collapsed on the ground, or they've been beaten and they're trying to wrap up bloodied and broken fingers. Some of the most difficult parts of that day for officers was just not knowing if they would make it home alive. One of the injured officers provided this victim impact statement in one of the court cases, and it's really stuck with me. He said, quote, "one of the hardest moments of my life was returning home and seeing my wife at 2:30 a.m. weeping in despair and relief, knowing that I made it home."
Another officer described excruciating back pain that he still has from his injuries, which means he can't play with his kids anymore. And then there's so much mental trauma that you hear about from the officers. For this project, I talked with Daniel Hodges. He's a D.C. police officer. He was repeatedly assaulted through the day on January 6. Rioters punched him, kicked him, tried to gouge out his eyes and crushed him inside a doorway. And I asked him how that experience has changed him.
DANIEL HODGES: I can't draw a straight line between this and the 6th, but I've been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, anxiety adjustment disorder and PTSD symptoms. It's made me a little bitter about humanity, but not completely. I still have hope. I still believe that, you know, we can be better.
DREISBACH: Another officer that was injured told me even more than the day itself, the traumatic part has been watching how the day has been rewritten and the history has been whitewashed.
RASCOE: That's NPR investigative correspondent Tom Dreisbach. Thank you so much for joining us.
DREISBACH: Thanks, Ayesha.
RASCOE: And you can see more of NPR's reporting on January 6 at npr.org/jan-6-archive (ph). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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