White House publishes website that rewrites history of Jan. 6 attack

The White House published a website Tuesday with a false telling of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, underscoring President Donald Trump’s yearslong effort to reshape the narrative surrounding the day when a mob of his supporters violently overran the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.

The White House website criticizes Democrats and some Republicans for engaging in what Trump has called a “witch hunt” against him after the Jan. 6 attack. Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury in August 2023 on four criminal counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, in a case investigating his involvement in the Jan. 6 attack and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

Former special counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal prosecution of Trump, told a House committee last month that the president bears the bulk of the blame for instigating the attack and emphasized that crimes occurred at the Capitol that day for Trump’s benefit.

Trump’s rhetoric led to a rampage inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, when a pro-Trump mob came within seconds of encountering Vice President Mike Pence, trapped lawmakers and vandalized the home of Congress in the worst desecration of the complex since British forces burned it in 1814. Five people died in the Jan. 6 attack or in the immediate aftermath, and 140 police officers were assaulted.

Smith dropped the case after Trump was reelected in 2024, citing federal regulations that prohibit prosecutions against sitting presidents.

“The evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy,” Smith testified to lawmakers last month, according to a transcript released by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee. “These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him.”

Trump also was impeached following the attack, but the Senate acquitted him during the subsequent trial. The attack — and Trump’s involvement — became the focus of a bipartisan House committee, whose members are prominently featured on the White House’s new website.

Among the five deaths was that of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who died the following day after being assaulted in the riot. Among numerous false claims in its recounting of Jan. 6, the White House website claims that “Zero law enforcement officers lost their lives,” making no mention of Sicknick. The riot also left about 140 members of law enforcement injured. Years later, the trauma of defending the Capitol that day has continued to dog many officers.

White House representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday afternoon.

Asked about the new website, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Tuesday he had not seen it, adding that “the Capitol Police do a great job around here.” Representatives for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The White House website also falsely claims — as Trump has for years — that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen,” and that Pence had the power to “return disputed electoral slates to state legislatures for review and decertification” but chose not to “in an act of cowardice and sabotage.”

Pence, who presided over the certification of the electoral votes following the attack, has steadfastly defended his actions on Jan. 6, saying to do otherwise would have been unconstitutional. Trump’s former vice president was inside the Capitol during the attack and had to be evacuated from the Senate floor with his family as rioters stormed the complex. Many in the mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” on the misguided belief that Pence could have stopped Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.

Representatives for Pence declined to provide a response Tuesday. His former chief of staff, Marc Short, pushed back on the White House’s claims in a social media post.

The new White House website also repeats a claim made often by Trump and his allies — that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who was speaker of the House at the time of the attack, is to blame for “security lapses” at the Capitol. Pelosi has vehemently rejected those accusations, saying again Tuesday that Trump resisted appeals to intervene in the attack for more than three hours.

“For over three hours we begged [Trump] to send the National Guard! He never did it. He took joy in not doing it. He was savoring it. … What he’s saying today is an insult to the American people,” Pelosi said at a Tuesday House event.

Pelosi spokesman Ian Krager slammed the new website as an attempt to rewrite history.

“Cherry-picked, out-of-context clips do not change the fact that the Speaker of the House is not in charge of the security of the Capitol Complex — on January 6th or any other day of the week,” Krager said in a statement. “The ongoing attempts to whitewash the deadly insurrection are shameful, unpatriotic, and pathetic.”

Earlier Tuesday, Democrats held a meeting to mark the anniversary of the attack, in which they accused Trump and Republicans of attempting to whitewash history. Guests included Pamela Hemphill, a rioter who said she took responsibility for her actions in 2021 and refused Trump’s pardon in 2025.

“Once I got away from the MAGA cult and started educating myself about January the 6th, I knew what I did was wrong,” Hemphill told lawmakers.

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), who led the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee, said in opening remarks that it is “important that we remember exactly what happened.”

“January 6th was not a regular tourist visit. It was not a day of love. It was a bloody riot that pushed our democracy to the breaking point,” Thompson said.

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• Brianna Tucker and Alec Dent contributed.