Five years later, as Trump's lies continue, the danger of the January 6 insurrection remains

An offensive White House web site of lies is an apt anniversary marker — not just of where Trump is but of where the many institutional failures to stop him have led us.

Congress’s failure not to impeach and remove Donald Trump from the presidency on January 7, 2021 could be one of the most significant failures in modern American history.

After the January 6, 2021 invasion of the U.S. Capitol by Trump’s supporters — who were there at Trump’s urging seeking to upend or stop the certification of Biden’s election win — Trump should have been out of office by January 8 and barred from holding any federal office ever again. Mike Pence should have completed Trump’s term, turning over the White House to Joe Biden on January 20. America should have been allowed to move on from this moment.

Instead, on the five-year anniversary of the insurrection, Trump is back in the White House — erasing history and defacing the White House website with offensive lies.

The failure to use impeachment — or the Twenty-Fifth Amendment — that week and to bar Trump from running for office again put additional, unnecessary pressure on all of the accountability efforts that followed, including those led by the January 6 Committee and Special Counsel Jack Smith.

The failure ultimately, with some help from the U.S. Supreme Court, enabled Trump’s 2024 run for re-election.

It’s a simple point, but it is a reality we are living with every day.

In his first year back in office, Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of those involved in the insurrection; attacked immigrants, transgender people, and the entire concept of American diversity as a value; took over or sought to shut down congressionally approved independent agencies; threatened law firms and universities, as well as the public’s health; sent armed troops into American cities; authorized boat strikes in international waters, killing more than 100 people; and, this past weekend, gave the go-ahead to the military to invade Venezuela and decapitate its government by taking its president to America.

And, five years after January 6, 2021, from his White House perch, Trump and his minions published an appalling alternative history spouting nonstop lies about the day.

Screencap from Trump administration White House “J6” website published on the fifth anniversary of the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

In addition to Trump’s never-give-up “Stolen Election“ lie, the White House’s offensive “J6” website included a continued attack on Trump’s first-term vice president for what the White House calls “an act of cowardice and sabotage“ because Pence carried out his ministerial role to oversee the certification of the electoral votes.

This is all a lie.

In the most Trumpian way, it is a lie that he and his minions tell not even because they believe it — at this point, who knows what Trump himself actually believes about anything — but because they can tell it and their superfans will listen.

For those of us who were in Washington, D.C. that day, however, this is such an obvious lie.

It’s all bullshit. It’s dangerous bullshit. It’s offensive bullshit. And we shouldn’t be here.

But, we are here.

So, those of us in D.C. that day will sit down to our computers to remind you of the calls and texts we got that day from people across the country — inquiring about our safety and asking what was going to happen.

I will remind you what I wrote that day, before 7:00 p.m.

In the face of Trump’s response to this ongoing insurrection, I am convinced @VP can make a strong case that “the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” He should gather the necessary support from the Cabinet to remove the President immediately.

This is a clear and present danger to the nation, and @VP’s responsibility — his oath — requires him to protect the nation and invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment. This unprecedented moment requires an unprecedented response. …

And, yes, I’ve previously stated that today’s actions from the president should lead to immediate impeachment and removal.

I was, of course, not alone that day. Many people spoke up and spoke out.

But, because Pence and the cabinet did not act that day, because Congress did not act then or in the weeks that followed, because the Supreme Court barred states from blocking Trump from the ballot and all but blocked Trump’s criminal prosecution, he returned to office and published his lies on the White House website five years after January 6, 2021.

Allow me to close on this anniversary with The Washington Post editorial board’s five-year old editorial calling on Pence to “immediately” invoke the 25th Amendment.

“Mr. Trump is a menace, and as long as he remains in the White House, the country will be in danger,” the board wrote.

They were right, and January 6, 2026 has — like so many days in the past year — only proven just how right they were.