On January 6, 2021, a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump attacked the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Their goal was to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, and they intended to do it by disrupting the joint session of Congress assembled to count electoral votes.  President-elect Joe Biden's victory would not be official until that count was complete. 

The Capitol was breached and lawmakers and staff were evacuated, while rioters assaulted law enforcement officers, vandalized property and occupied the complex. Five people died because of the events of that day. 138 police officers were injured. It was the most severe assault on the Capitol building in more than two centuries and the most forceful attack on the peaceful transition of power in the history of the American presidency.

The Capitol attack created fraught legal and political challenges that have played out over the year since.  How do we combat an attempted insurrection against our nation’s institutions? Who is responsible, and how do we hold them accountable? What reforms do we need to prevent this from happening again? Can we even tell the whole story? 

From Lawfare and Goat Rodeo, this is The Aftermath, a new series to explore the government’s response to January 6th and the search for accountability. 

What exactly has our legal system been doing the last year? Are we actually equipped to deal with a growing call for political violence? How does one prosecute a riot? Can Congress pass reforms and tell the story? And where do we go from here? This series isn’t about the events leading up to the attack, or about the attack itself, it's about what happened next—about the efforts to confront and counter an insurrection.

Coming on January 6, 2022...

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