WASHINGTON (AP) – Turns out, Jan. 6 was more than just the day when a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol.
It was the culmination, but also the start, of an enduring challenge for American democracy.
The House committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021 has shown how the deadly Capitol attack was sparked months earlier on Election Night 2020, when the incumbent president, Donald Trump, refused to admit he was trailing Joe Biden, and instead spewed false claims of voter fraud and declared himself the winner.
The defeated president spent the next eight weeks orchestrating an unprecedented attempt to overturn the election results and summoned supporters to Washington on Jan. 6 to finish the job.
And even after the blood, mayhem and deaths at the Capitol, Trump still refused on Jan. 7 to say the words that all those around him knew needed to be said: the presidential election was over.