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insurrection
'Filled With Lies': Trump White House Releases False History of Jan. 6
"It is past time for 25th Amendment remedies," said one critic.
Jan 06, 2026
To commemorate the fifth anniversary of the deadly riots incited by President Donald Trump at the US Capitol Building, the Trump White House on Tuesday unveiled a website loaded with false claims about the events that took place on January 6, 2021.
The official White House January 6 website features multiple falsehoods and distortions about the Trump-incited Capitol riots, including brazenly false claims about the Capitol Police "escalating" tensions with rioters by firing "tear gas, flash bangs, and rubber munitions into crowds of peaceful protesters."
In reality, Trump supporters stormed past police barricades that had been set up at the Capitol and then smashed windows to enter the building and illegally disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump falsely claimed to have won.
The website also blames former Vice President Mike Pence for refusing to go along with Trump's unconstitutional scheme to unilaterally discard certified election results from key swing states, which would have put the election results in the hands of Republican-controlled state legislatures to falsely certify Trump as the winner.
The Trump White House's revisionist history of the riots falsely claims that rioter Ashli Babbitt was "murdered in cold blood" by Capitol Police, when in reality she was shot while trying to break into into the Speaker's Lobby after being warned multiple times by officers to stand back.
The Capitol rioters garner significant praise from the White House website, which falsely portrays them as peaceful demonstrators who fell victim to the actions of Capitol Police and overly zealous Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors.
"On his first day back in office, January 20, 2025, President Trump issued sweeping blanket pardons and commutations for nearly 1,600 patriotic Americans prosecuted for their presence at the Capitol—many mere trespassers or peaceful protesters treated as insurrectionists by a weaponized Biden DOJ," the website says.
The blatantly false claims on the website drew a horrified reaction from many critics, including some journalists who were at the Capitol on that day and witnesses the riots firsthand.
"Never forget that Trump attempted a coup to stay in power after losing reelection, ending with the violent insurrection he incited that left 140 cops injured, five dead," wrote HuffPost White House correspondent SV Dáte on X.
"The White House's new January 6 page is filled with lies, misrepresentation, and reality denial," wrote Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins on Bluesky. "It's a clear attempt to rewrite history and frame Trump in heroic terms."
Author Mike Rothschild accused the White House of engaging in historical revisionism on par with the government depicted in George Orwell's classic novel 1984, arguing that Trump and his underlings of embracing "an alternate reality so hackneyed and obviously fake that it would make Orwell stick his head in a wood chipper."
Victor Ray, a sociologist at the University of Iowa, raised alarms about what the January 6 White House website says about Trump's mental health.
"This is batshit," he wrote. "The White House is doing alternate reality history. It is past time for 25th Amendment remedies."
Matt Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters for America, reacted to the section of the website blaming Pence by describing it as an ominous sign that a future coup attempt by Trump to illegally remain in power might actually succeed.
"Trump replaced Pence on the ticket with someone he fully expects would carry out this deranged scheme if he has the opportunity, instead betraying the Constitution," he wrote, referring to Vice President JD Vance, who criticized Pence for fulfilling his constitutional duty and certifying the 2020 election results.
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Trump Is No King—He's More Dangerous Than That
And yet, as he was elected by the people, we need no revolution to overthrow him. What we must do is reclaim democracy for the common good and put back together what the MAGA movement has smashed.
Jul 04, 2025
Donald Trump seems to think he is a king.
On June 14, I joined with citizens across the country to loudly declare “No Kings!
At the same time, Trump is not a king. For while he inherited great wealth, he did not inherit the political power he now wields with such cruelty and contempt for the law.
Trump, alas, is the elected President of the United States.
Well over 77 million citizens voted for him, after experiencing his Covid response, his two impeachments, his civil and criminal convictions, and his failed administration. After all that, those millions of our fellow citizens elected him to the highest office in the country for a second time.
As we celebrate this July 4, it is important to emphasize the ways that Trump’s presidency stands as an affront and a danger to those core values of the Declaration that have long animated democratic struggles...
Trump is indeed much more dangerous than any monarch, precisely because he was elected after a multi-year campaign (kings do not campaign) that consisted of angry rhetoric and violent incitement and very clear promises to do exactly what he is now doing, a campaign that generated substantial popular support and even enthusiasm. There is something paradoxical about this: claiming to represent “We the People,” Trump is laying waste to the foundations of the very constitutional democracy that authorizes his power—much like dictators of the past, including Mussolini and Hitler, did a century ago, and Viktor Orban and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan do today.
The U.S. was not a constitutional democracy in 1776. But it became one, over time, because of the struggles of social movements that regarded the Declaration of Independence as “a charter of liberty” and sought to make real its promise—to secure human rights for all, and a government legitimated by popular consent. A nation, as Lincoln famously put it, “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” and challenged to sustain “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
As we celebrate this July 4, it is important to emphasize the ways that Trump’s presidency stands as an affront and a danger to those core values of the Declaration that have long animated democratic struggles—which makes it all the more galling that he continues to insist that he, along with his recently reinstated “1776 Commission,” is its chief defender.
The rhetoric of popular revolt or revolution is misleading precisely because Trump is a democratically elected president and is neither a king nor a dictator—at least not yet.
On June 14, I nodded approvingly as I heard fellow demonstrators rightly invoke the liberatory rhetoric of the Declaration’s Preamble. But I blanched when this line was loudly repeated as a call to action: “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
I bow to no one in my opposition to Trump, and I truly want to see him gone as soon as possible. Given his administration’s rapid-fire assaults on liberal democracy, I fully appreciate the mobilizational power of those “No Kings” appeals to the rhetoric of popular revolt. And it must be stated: those who embrace this rhetoric do so only rhetorically; it is not anywhere accompanied by incitements to violence or calls to insurrection.
At the same time, the rhetoric of popular revolt or revolution is misleading precisely because Trump is a democratically elected president and is neither a king nor a dictator—at least not yet. Trump is what historians call a “conservative revolutionary.” Seeking to destroy the progressive achievements of past decades, and to restore a mythic lost “greatness,” it is he who seeks to alter or abolish the current political system, and it is we who must prevent him from succeeding, by defending constitutional democracy, whatever its deficiencies.
Recall that the January 6, 2021 insurrection was justified as a second American Revolution. On that morning, MAGA Congresswoman Lauren Boebert ttweeted “Today is 1776.” Congressman Jody Hice followed a few hours later, tweeting “this is our 1776 moment.” The rallying cry was heard. And, led by Proud Boys and Three Percenters cosplaying the Minutemen of Lexington and Concord, the “patriotic” mob descended upon the Capitol, doing their part to prevent “Biden the Usurper” from becoming president. Days later, the Philadelphia Inquirer profiled Jim Sinclair, a 38-year-old home restoration contractor from Bensalem, Pennsylvania, who traveled to Washington to participate in the “Stop the Steal” march. “Freedom!!!!!!!” Sinclair posted on Facebook. “It’s 1776, the American people have ears and eyes,” he declared. “We will not accept this fraudulent election.” Politico reported that online social media traffic among extremists in the lead-up to the insurrection frequently alluded to the precedent of 1776.
This is the rhetoric of civil war. And it attacks the fundamental premise of our constitutional democracy—the legitimacy of political contestation.
Also recall that the highbrow conservative luminaries from Hillsdale College and the Claremont Institute who comprised Trump’s “1776 Commission” and revere “The Founding Fathers” either directly supported this insurrection or gave it intellectual cover. The “Stop the Steal” movement that powered Trump’s 2024 victory frequently invoked the “spirit of ’76.” Claiming to represent a “resistance” to the supposedly “totalitarian Biden regime,” MAGA ideologues were quite amenable to extra-legal action in the service of “regime change,” in the event that “the Democrat Party” succeeded in 2024. If you doubt this, take a look at Claremont Institute Fellow Kevin Slack’s 2023 book War on the American Republic: How Liberalism Became Despotism, which floats the idea of a new—and very much armed—American Revolution. Discussing the book in The American Mind, a MAGA journal, Claremont fellow Glenn Ellmers dispassionately discusses “Revolutionary Necessity,” quoting Jefferson on “prudence” and gently urging caution because “the regime” would love to crush a revolution, and “one should embark on a revolution only when there is a reasonable expectation, and plan for, a better arrangement.” In other words, you need to really be sure you can succeed before you try to overthrow the “despotism” of liberal democracy.
This is the rhetoric of civil war. And it attacks the fundamental premise of our constitutional democracy—the legitimacy of political contestation. Trump won the 2024 election. And so, instead of taking to the streets—as they might have done had Trump lost—MAGA ideologues, armed with their own revolutionary manifesto, Project 2025, have taken control of the Executive Branch of the federal government. And they are using it to wage war on legal institutions, universities, immigrants both documented and undocumented, sexual minorities, and political critics of all kinds.
This July Fourth, we ought to recall heroes and heroines of the past—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, Eugene V. Debs, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others—who led the fight to realize a robustly democratic vision of the Declaration. And then, using the hard-won civil and political liberties still at our disposal, we ought to rededicate ourselves to winning back political power democratically, so that, in the words of Lincoln, “government of, by, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” For if the MAGA agenda succeeds, we can say goodbye to civil rights, civil liberties, and democracy itself. It would be a cruel irony indeed if future July 4 celebrations were to become celebrations of the MAGA illiberalism that warms Donald Trump’s shriveled heart.
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Trump DOJ Fires Jan. 6 Prosecutors, Top FBI Agents While Threatening Larger Purge
"Trump's outrageous attack on the DOJ and FBI is a clear and present danger to public safety, and a wrecking ball swinging at the rule of law," Rep. Jamie Raskin said.
Feb 01, 2025
The Trump Department of Justice made moves on Friday to fire FBI employees and prosecutors who were involved with the government's cases against U.S. President Donald Trump and the participants in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
First, on Thursday, several senior FBI officials—stationed both at headquarters and in the field—were told to either resign or be fired. Then, at 5 pm Eastern Time on Friday, dozens of DOJ prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases received an email saying they had been fired. Also on Friday, an email sent to FBI employees told them that acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, who previously represented Trump in the cases against him, had requested a list of everyone who had worked on January 6 cases "to determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary."
"Firing the FBI agents who investigated violent attacks against police officers on January 6 would set a dangerous precedent and make all of us less safe," Stand Up America executive director Christina Harvey said in a statement. "This is a shameless act of political retribution that weakens federal law enforcement and the rule of law."
"This is a massacre meant to chill our efforts to fight crime without fear or favor."
The FBI higher-ups forced out included the agency's six most senior executives as well as more than 20 directors of field offices including Washington, D.C., Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Seattle, and Las Vegas. The targeted officials had been promoted by former FBI Director Christopher Wray, according to The New York Times. The Washington, D.C. field office worked extensively on Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigations into Trump's mishandling of classified documents and involvement in the January 6 insurrection, as well as the investigations of the rioters themselves, NBC News reported. One source told The Hill that agents who had worked on the cases were physically escorted out of the D.C. field office on Friday.
NBC reported that several of the senior officials had chosen to retire, even though they could have challenged their dismissals as nonpolitical appointees subject to civil service regulations.
Many of the agents received the ultimatum the same day that U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee to head the FBI, Kash Patel, promised in his Senate confirmation hearing that he would not retaliate against any agents who worked on the Trump cases and was not aware of any attempts to do so.
"All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution," Patel told the Senate.
Trump, meanwhile, said on Friday that he was not aware of the firings, but added, "If they fired some people over there, that's a good thing, because they were very bad. They were very corrupt people, very corrupt, and they hurt our country very badly with the weaponization."
Another memo sent by Bove to acting FBI Director Brian J. Driscoll Jr. laid the groundwork for more firings, as Driscoll was asked to submit a list of all agents and employees "assigned at any time to investigations and/or prosecutions" related to January 6, as The New York Times reported. Field offices received a similar request from the FBI's counterterrorism division. Bove also asked for a list of agents who worked on a case against Hamas leadership, though it is not clear why.
One employee told CNN that the January 6 case was the largest case the bureau had ever worked on, observing that "everyone touched that case."
In an email to staff on Friday reported by NBC, Driscoll noted, "We understand that this request encompasses thousands of employees across the country who have supported these investigative efforts," adding, "I am one of those employees."
"This is a massacre meant to chill our efforts to fight crime without fear or favor," another anonymous agent told CNN. "Even for those not fired, it sends the message that the bureau is no longer independent."
The FBI Agents Association, which represents over 14,000 active and former agents, issued a scathing statement on Friday.
"If true, these outrageous actions by acting officials are fundamentally at odds with the law enforcement objectives outlined by President Trump and his support for FBI Agents," the association said. "Dismissing potentially hundreds of agents would severely weaken the bureau's ability to protect the country from national security and criminal threats and will ultimately risk setting up the bureau and its new leadership for failure. These actions also contradict the commitments that Attorney General-nominee Pam Bondi and Director-nominee Kash Patel made during their nomination hearings before the United States Senate."
The group added that Patel had promised association members in a meeting that "agents would be afforded appropriate process and review and not face retribution based solely on the cases to which they were assigned."
Finally on Friday, DOJ prosecutors received an email from Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, telling them they were being fired and including a memo from Bove. The fired prosecutors had been hired to work on the January 6 cases and were made permanent by the Biden administration following the November election. In his memo, Bove suggested the prosecutors had been made permanent in an inappropriate attempt to protect them from being fired.
"I will not tolerate subversive personnel actions by the previous administration at any U.S. Attorney's Office," Bove wrote, as POLITICO reported. "Too much is at stake. In light of the foregoing, the appropriate course is to terminate these employees."
One of the impacted prosecutors told POLITICO that 25 to 30 people were let go.
"This attack on the Justice Department and particularly on the FBI is the beginning of America's first true era of dictatorship."
The latest round of DOJ firings comes days after the Trump administration already fired a dozen lawyers who had helped bring Smith's two cases against Trump. They also come a week after Trump's firing of 12 inspectors general. Trump also pardoned all approximately 1,500 people involved in the January 6 insurrection on his first day in office.
News of the FBI and DOJ firings sparked ire from Democratic lawmakers.
"Trump's outrageous attack on the DOJ and FBI is a clear and present danger to public safety, and a wrecking ball swinging at the rule of law," said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, in a statement. "Trump wants to send the message to the police and federal officers that the law doesn't apply to Trump and his enablers. It's also part of his campaign to replace nonpartisan career civil servants with political loyalists and incompetent sycophants. Trump's moves have already left the Justice Department and the FBI rudderless and adrift by ousting their career senior ranks. Now, these unprecedented purges of hundreds of prosecutors, staff, and experienced law enforcement agents will undermine the government's power to protect our country against national security, cyber, and criminal threats."
"The loyal friend of autocrats, kleptocrats, oligarchs, and broligarchs, Trump doesn't care about the requirements of democracy, national security, and public safety," Raskin continued. "His agenda is vengeance and retribution. If allowed to proceed, Trump's purge of our federal law enforcement workforce will expose America to authoritarianism and dictatorship."
Sen. Dick Durbin, (D-Ill.), who serves on the Judiciary Committee, called the firings "a major blow to the FBI and Justice Department's integrity and effectiveness."
"This is a brazen assault on the rule of law that also severely undermines our national security and public safety," Durbin continued. "Unelected Trump lackeys are carrying out widespread political retribution against our nation's career law enforcement officials. President Trump would rather have the FBI and DOJ full of blind admirers and loyalists than experienced law enforcement officers."
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) also decried the firings and cast doubt on the integrity of Bondi and Patel, whom Trump had tapped to lead the DOJ and FBI respectively.
"Pam Bondi and Kash Patel both committed to protecting the Department of Justice and the FBI from politics and weaponization. If these reports are true, it's clear they misled the Senate," Himes said. "As ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, I have repeatedly asked the FBI for more information about these reports and will insist on answers."
Fellow Connecticut Democrat Rep. Rosa DeLauro wrote on social media: "Priority #1 for the Trump administration: Protect the lawless and purge those who uphold the law. The firing of FBI agents and federal prosecutors without cause is an assault on the rule of law and law enforcement. It leaves Americans vulnerable and less safe. We will push back."
As Democrats promised action, Harvey of Stand Up America also called on Republican lawmakers to respond.
"This is not about public safety—it's about revenge and control," Harvey said. "Removing experienced law enforcement professionals and replacing them with political loyalists puts all of our safety at risk. If there are any Republican senators left who care about protecting the rule of law and public safety, they should oppose this dangerous purge and reject Kash Patel's nomination as FBI Director."
Progressive political commenter Thom Hartmann urged U.S. citizens to call their representatives.
"Let's just call these mass firings at Justice and the FBI what they are. Donald Trump is a lawless man who is ripping apart the FBI to turn it into a banana republic-style group of enforcing thugs who will only do his will," Hartmann wrote on his Substack Saturday morning. "They will spare his friends and persecute his enemies. We've seen this over and over during the past century in countries all over the world; it's nothing new. It's just that we never expected to see it here in America."
"[Russian President Vladimir] Putin dreamed for most of his life of destroying America; he now has a friend who is doing it for him. This attack on the Justice Department and particularly on the FBI is the beginning of America's first true era of dictatorship. The only question now is how long and how far Democratic and Republican politicians and career government employees will tolerate this, and, when their resistance comes, whether it will be too late. The phone number for Congress is 202-224-3121."
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