Five years after Jan. 6, Trump is rewriting the narrative around the Capitol siege

Five years after he and his allies tried and failed to overturn the results of the 2020 election, President Donald Trump is rewriting Jan. 6.

WASHINGTON — Five years after he and his allies tried and failed to overturn the results of the 2020 election, President Donald Trump is using his time back in the White House to take a series of actions aimed at erasing or rewriting the Jan. 6, 2021, siege on the U.S. Capitol, with more likely to come.

Trump mass pardoned Jan. 6 rioters on his first day back in office. Justice Department officials and FBI agents involved in the massive investigation and prosecution were fired. Dozens of other supporters involved in efforts to overturn the election results have been pre-emptively pardoned.

A former Jan. 6 prosecutor said Trump’s actions — and the growing embrace of them by a broader swath of Americans — were “maddening.”

“I spoke with dozens and dozens of people who were there that day and who are still dealing with the trauma,” said the prosecutor, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. “It makes you feel crazy because you know what happened that day, but there is the chief executive nodding positively along to this narrative that they are trying to build.”

Trump has said a federally funded compensation fund for Jan. 6 rioters was under discussion “because a lot of the people in government really like that group of people.”