Assault on the United States Capitol, a year later

One year after assault on Capitol, the scope of this violent event is not yet completely clear to American public opinion.

More than 700 participants in the attack are being prosecuted - as authorities continue to search for hundreds of participants who have not yet been identified - but it is their impact on democracy that the independent investigation that is slowly advancing in the Chamber of Commerce points to. Representatives.

The text messages you received on your mobile phone in the previous days and on January 6 itself, Mark Meadows, Chief of Staff of then President Donald Trump, have been one of the keys to begin to know what was happening in the White House while the Capitol was assaulted.

In December, Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney revealed the content of some of the messages sent to the Meadows cell phone by one of the former president's sons, Donald Trump Junior, of network personalities. FOX and even members of Congress.

“One of the members of Congress says to him in capital letters, 'Mark, he has to stop this now. Tell them to go home. The president has to come out firmly and tell the protesters to dissipate, that someone is going to die, '”Cheney quoted.

For his part, Trump himself referred this week to the investigation as "the great smoke screen of the committee, of which the media are complicit."

That is why, as the note explains, that the ex-president canceled a press conference that was scheduled for January 6 in Florida, coinciding with the first anniversary of the assault, in which it was presumed that Trump would falsely insist that the election was "stolen" and that the "real" insurrection occurred on November 3 2020, on Election Day.

Five people died as a result of the events on Capitol Hill, including a Trump supporter and several agents. A dozen members of the police forces were injured.

Trump's "lack of action"

From the experience of political strategist Jason Jay Smart, who has advised campaigns for the Republican Party, former President Trump's timely inaction is questionable.

"He was not willing to act to protect his vice president and protect Congress, that was quite surprising," he told the Voice of america, recalling that many of the assailants clamored to hang Mike Pence for fulfilling his obligation and ratifying the electoral result.

Although not all Trump supporters who went to the Capitol were involved in acts of violence or vandalism, they did get carried away by misinformation and conspiracy theories, according to political scientist Yanina Welp.

"The surveys give us a large percentage of the North American population that adheres to conspiracy theories of various kinds, that adheres to fraud, even though there is no evidence of any kind," he said in an interview with the VOA.

Recover historical memory

While establishing the truth and the impact of these facts on American democracy, the director of the National Museum of American History, Anthea Harting, works in the preservation of the historical memory of the country. She directs the collection of hundreds of objects that symbolized the attack on the Capitol.

"They are a variety of objects that we hope can tell broader stories, that then people can also interpret through their own lenses what happened that day, and understand and feel with certainty the fragility of democracy," he commented to the VOA in reference to what has been compiled so far.

Investigations into the assault on the Capitol have not yet concluded. The House committee wants access to the files of the White House, but Donald Trump has filed legal action to prevent them from being revealed And it is now the Supreme Court of Justice that has the last word to clarify the scope of the events of January 6, 2021.

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