The five truths Trump hopes you will forget about 6 January 2021

Three years ago this week, the United States Capitol was attacked by thousands of armed loyalists of Donald Trump, some intent on killing members of Congress.

Roughly 140 police officers were injured in the attack. Four people died. Capitol police officer Brian D Sicknick, who participated in the response, passed away the following day. Another Capitol police officer and a Washington DC police officer who also responded to the attack have since died by suicide.

January 6, 2021, will be remembered as one of the most shameful days in US history. Yet three years later, Americans remain confused and divided about the significance of what occurred.

Let me offer five basic truths:

The events of January 6 capped two months during which Donald Trump sought to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election.

In the wake of the election, Trump repeatedly asserted that he had won and Biden had lost, without any basis in fact or law. Sixty federal courts as well as Trump’s own Departments of Justice and Homeland Security concluded that there was no evidence of substantial fraud.

Trump summoned to the White House Republican lawmakers from Pennsylvania and Michigan to inquire about how they might alter the election results.

He called two local canvassing board officials in Wayne county, Michigan, that state’s most populous county and one that overwhelmingly favored Biden.

He phoned Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes”, according to a recording of that conversation, adding that “the people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”

He alluded that Georgia’s secretary of state would face criminal prosecution if he did not do