January 6th, 2021

Episode: The January 6 Insurrection On January 6, 2021, a violent mob breached the United States Capitol in an attempt to overturn the certified results of the 2020 presidential election. What followed was not a protest, not a riot born of chaos, but a coordinated attack on democratic process fueled by political lies, extremist rhetoric, and direct incitement from the sitting President of the United States. This episode examines how the insurrection unfolded, who participated, how law enforcement failed, and how Donald Trump and the MAGA movement created and sustained the conditions that made the attack inevitable. We trace the day from the “Stop the Steal” rally through the storming of the Capitol, the deaths that followed, and the long aftermath of arrests, trials, and presidential pardons that attempted to erase accountability. ? Topics Covered • The buildup of election denial after November 2020• Trump’s pressure campaign against state officials• The January 6 rally and incendiary rhetoric• The breach of the Capitol building• Violence against Capitol Police officers• Deaths connected to the insurrection• Delayed National Guard response• The House Select Committee investigation• Criminal prosecutions of rioters• Trump’s pardons and normalization of political violence ? SOURCES & REFERENCES Official Government Records U.S. Department of Justice – Capitol Breach Caseshttps://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attackhttps://january6th.house.gov Final Report of the January 6 Committee (PDF)https://january6th.house.gov/sites/democrats.january6th.house.gov/files/Final_Report.pdf Verified News Reporting Associated Press – Jan. 6 timeline and prosecutionshttps://apnews.com/hub/jan-6-capitol-riot Reuters – January 6 investigation coveragehttps://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-capitol-attack/ The New York Times – Visual and investigative reportinghttps://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/us-capitol-riot Washington Post – Reconstruction of the attackhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2021/politics/trump-insurrection-capitol/ Deaths and Violence Documentation U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick coveragehttps://