Trump has long tried to rewrite the history of Jan. 6 from his bully pulpit, but he can’t do that as easily in a court of law.

“I see how Trump’s second term is already so much worse, and I would argue that is in part because he was allowed to return to office and was never held accountable in trying to steal the 2020 election,” Jayapal said. “He was never held accountable for claiming that he was acting in an official capacity when he clearly wasn’t.”

Trump called Jan. 6 a “hoax” only weeks ago. He continues to falsely claim, against intelligence community assessments and independent inspector general findings, that FBI agents were responsible for agitating the mob on Jan. 6. In the lawsuit, Trump has defended his conduct on Jan. 6 as necessary and normal for a president concerned with goings-on across government.

One of Trump’s first moves when he reentered the White House was to pardon over 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants, including those who violently assaulted police. He issued pardons and commutations for members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys convicted of organizing a seditious conspiracy to stop the transfer of power. 

“So many of these people who were convicted were let go. People serving their sentences. People awaiting trial. People who had pleaded guilty or served their time — they were given pardons,” Johnson said.

“There are dangerous folks released out onto the streets,” he added. 

A number of the people Trump pardoned have been reoffenders, including for gun charges and sex crimes against children.

The pardons made America seem like a “dystopian place to be,” Jayapal said. 

Republicans formed a new Jan. 6 committee this fall, three years after the House Select Committee to Investigate Jan. 6 issued its final report. That report found Trump relied on “nonsense” claims of fraud to advance his lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him, pressured state and local election officials to say the election was “corrupt,” delayed his response to send help to the Capitol, and more. 

According to the committee’s final report, Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6 left Pentagon officials feeling so uncomfortable that they told investigators they were reluctant to deploy the military to quell the mob because they feared Trump would issue an “illegal order” to use the troops for his own coup attempt.

“Trump tries to rewrite history … but you can’t rewrite history,” Nadler said. “You can try to ‘1984’ it, but the truth is the truth.” 

Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, told HuffPost this litigation has always been about ensuring there are “guardrails” from tyrannical power and protecting the peaceful transfer of power.

“When individuals violate those guardrails, we need to go above partisanship and political alignments and really focus on [the question of] what type of society and nation we want to be,” he said.

“Nations grow, societies thrive when we learn from history, good and bad, as opposed to seeking to redefine history,” he added. “What we’re seeing with this administration and Congress is they are trying to redefine history despite Americans from across the country from all walks of life, witnessing with their own eyes what was taking place at the Capitol. And what was taking place was an insurrection.”

Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, he said, are a “textbook” example of what the Ku Klux Klan Act was created for: to stop the strong-arming of those tasked to uphold a democracy.

Since the tidal wave of rioters bearing Trump’s name on flags and banners stormed the Capitol, political violence and extremism has been on the rise across the U.S.

Reuters found political violence had ticked up by at least 200 cases since the Capitol assault in 2021. Anti-government extremism has increased, too, with government officials being more regularly targeted. A University of Maryland report found the percentage of violent events that targeted government officials and facilities more than doubled in the first half of 2025 compared with that period in 2024.

Among many other things, an Arizona state lawmaker publicly called for Jayapal to be hanged in September.

The lawmakers argue there is a perfect storm brewing: increased political polarization, lack of trust in a justice system, and rules being flouted or abused by the president. 

But the lawmakers have been playing the long game. The very long game. 

Johnson said he is “more confident today” that democracy can survive Trump. 

During the No Kings protests, some 7 million people marched across the country against Trump, he noted. Democrats have been beating Republicans in elections this year. 

The “monster will be put back into the box,” he said.