Opinion: The insurrectionists’ roll call

Intro

Intro

It’s been a year since the horrible attack on the U.S. Capitol, which resulted in five deaths, countless injuries, hundreds of people charged or arrested, and millions of dollars in damages. One would think both parties would have united to decry the assault and bring the instigators to justice, but, instead, only the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol to overturn the presidential election results have been brought to justice.

As U.S. Capitol Hill Police Officer Harry Dunn testified about the attack to Congress last year, “If a hit man is hired and he kills somebody, the hit man goes to jail. But not only does the hit man go to jail, but the person who hired him does.”

Donald Trump

“If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” President Donald Trump said at his Jan. 6 “Save America” rally before telling his supporters to march to the Capitol. [Read more]

Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz

The senators led the charge to block certification of ballots in Congress. [Read more]

Rudy Giuliani

Trump’s lawyer, once the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, had his New York law license suspended for falsehoods he peddled while trying to reverse the election results. [Read more]

John Eastman

A former Chapman University law professor and dean who outlined a scheme to block or delay certification of Joe Biden as president. [Read more]

Jeffrey Clark

Then the assistant attorney general, Clark sought to topple his boss, acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, by agreeing to do for Trump what Rosen refused to do — bully Georgia election officials. [Read more]

Bernard Kerik

A former New York City police commissioner and convicted felon pardoned by Trump in early 2020, Kerik led efforts to conjure up voting irregularities in key states. [Read more]

Ali Alexander with GOP Reps. Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar

Alexander, leader of Stop the Steal, said in a since-deleted video that the three Republican congressmen helped plan how to put “maximum pressure on Congress” during the counting of electoral college votes. Biggs and Brooks have denied meeting with Alexander. [Read more]

Kayleigh McEnany and Stephen Miller

The White House advisers amplified the myth of voter fraud — McEnany from the press room podium and Miller as Trump’s speechwriter. [Read more]

Roger Stone and Alex Jones

Stone, a Trump ally and longtime GOP provocateur, and Jones, the host of Infowars, each promoted Trump’s false claims of election fraud. [Read more]

Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell

Both private citizens, Powell and Lindell were two of the loudest voices arguing the election results were fraudulent. Dominion Voting Systems sued each for defamation. Powell’s response was to argue that no one should have taken her seriously. “Reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact,” she wrote in her motion to dismiss the suit. [Read more]

Jason Miller

A Trump aide who frequently advanced the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, he attended a meeting at the Willard hotel “command center” in D.C. on Jan. 5, along with Giuliani, Steve Bannon, Eastman and Kerik. [Read more]

Dan Scavino

Trump’s social media adviser was reportedly part of a conversation with Trump on Jan. 5 that turned on how to persuade members of Congress not to certify the election. [Read more]

Michael Flynn

Trump’s former national security adviser urged the president to declare martial law and redo the election. “There are still avenues” for a Trump win, he said at a Dec. 12 rally in D.C. “The courts aren’t going to decide who the next president of the United States is going to be. We the people decide.” [Read more]

Steve Bannon

“All hell is going to break loose tomorrow,” Bannon, a former Trump White House official, told listeners on his podcast on Jan. 5. [Read more]

Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle

During the Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse, Eric Trump told the crowd that lawmakers needed to “show some fight” before urging the angry mass to “march on the Capitol today.” Backstage, Donald Trump Jr., in a video he recorded for social media, called the rallygoers “awesome patriots that are sick of the bulls---.” Trump Jr.'s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, danced and, clenching her right fist, urged people to “fight.” [Read more]

Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham

The Fox News hosts helped feed the populist fires that led to the insurrection and then tried to play down the riot and claim that participants were actually leftists. As the violent insurrection unfolded, Hannity and Ingraham also urged the White House to call off the mob. [Read more]

Christopher Miller

The acting defense secretary took more than three hours to send the D.C. National Guard to the Capitol to help put down the insurrection. [Read more]

Mark Meadows

During the riot, at least half a dozen people reached out to Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, to urge him to ask Trump to quell the uprising, according to text messages detailed by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chair of the House select committee investigating Jan. 6. [Read more]

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Jim Jordan

Each lawmaker spoke with Trump on the phone while the riot was in progress. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) disclosed during the 2021 impeachment proceedings that Trump told McCarthy, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.” [Read more]

The Oath Keepers and Proud Boys

Federal authorities have arrested associates of these groups for their involvement in the riot at the Capitol, and the groups’ leaders have been subpoenaed to appear before the Jan. 6 committee. [Read more]

Mike Pence

The vice president stood up to Trump and his mob that day, but subsequent reporting made it clear that he seriously considered Eastman’s scheme to declare Trump the winner before concluding that he lacked the authority to do so. [Read more]

Sen. Lindsey Graham and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

Each senator criticized Trump for the attacks — but hedged his criticism in the days following. Six days after Graham denounced Trump on the Senate floor, he accepted a ride with the president on Air Force One. [Read more] McConnell said Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for provoking the riot but voted against conviction in Trump’s subsequent impeachment trial. [Read more]