The Unfinished Business of January 6: When Accountability Failed

By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News

Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — September 1, 2026

On January 6, 2021, the constitutional machinery of the United States was performing one of its most routine and most important functions: Congress was counting electoral votes and formally completing the transfer of presidential power.

Then the Capitol was breached.

The attack itself has been examined through congressional hearings, criminal prosecutions, court proceedings, an impeachment trial, and the final report of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Arguments continue over responsibility for security failures, the motivations of individual participants, Donald Trump’s intentions, and the political character of subsequent investigations. Those disagreements belong in the historical record.

But one fact cannot reasonably be disputed: Congress was forced to suspend the constitutionally prescribed certification proceeding while a violent mob occupied portions of the United States Capitol (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

Trump was subsequently impeached by the House for “incitement of insurrection.” The Senate acquitted him when 57 senators voted guilty and 43 voted not guilty—ten votes short of the constitutionally required two-thirds majority (U.S. House of Representatives, 2021; U.S. Senate, 2021a).

Four years later, Trump returned to the White House.

January 6 therefore presents an extraordinary constitutional problem.

This is no longer merely a question about what happened in 2021.

It is a question about what the United States decided—or failed to decide—about presidential accountability.

January 6 Did Not Begin on January 6

Reducing January 6 to several hours of rioting misses much of the constitutional issue.

The House Select Committee concluded after its investigation that Trump had engaged in a broader effort to overturn the lawful result of the 2020 presidential election. Its final report drew upon documents and testimony from numerous Republicans and members of Trump’s own administration and campaign, including former Justice Department officials, White House personnel, campaign officials, state officials, and others (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

The committee concluded that Trump continued promoting false allegations of widespread election fraud after courts rejected numerous challenges and after advisers told him that evidence did not support claims sufficient to reverse the election result (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

The committee also concluded that Trump pressured state officials concerning election results, participated in efforts involving alternative electoral certificates, sought assistance from Justice Department officials, and pressured Vice President Mike Pence not to count certain electoral votes during the January 6 joint session of Congress (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

Those were findings of a congressional committee, not criminal convictions.

That distinction matters.

Trump and his supporters have consistently rejected the committee’s interpretation, characterized the investigation as partisan, maintained that he genuinely believed the election had been compromised, and argued that his political speech and challenges to election results were constitutionally protected.

But disagreement with the committee does not erase the evidence it collected. The historical record includes testimony from Trump’s own officials describing repeated warnings that allegations being advanced about the election were unsupported (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

The constitutional issue therefore reaches beyond the riot itself.

It concerns an incumbent president’s response to losing an election.

The Vice President Was Asked to Do Something He Could Not Lawfully Do

Vice President Mike Pence became central to Trump’s effort.

Trump and allies argued that Pence possessed authority during the congressional electoral count to reject or delay electoral votes from contested states.

Pence rejected that argument.

The January 6 Committee concluded that Trump pressured Pence to refuse to count electoral votes despite being informed that the proposed action lacked lawful constitutional authority (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

That episode is significant because the peaceful transfer of presidential power depends upon losing candidates eventually accepting an institutional answer they do not like.

Candidates can demand recounts.

They can file lawsuits.

They can challenge election procedures.

They can seek investigations.

They can argue that election laws were violated.

But eventually the courts rule, states certify their results, electors vote, Congress counts those votes, and power changes hands.

The American constitutional system cannot function if an incumbent president possesses an effective unilateral veto over that process.

Then Came the Capitol

Trump addressed supporters near the White House on January 6 before Congress convened to count the electoral votes. He urged supporters to march to the Capitol while also telling them to make their voices heard “peacefully and patriotically.”

That language is an important part of Trump’s defense and should not be omitted from any serious assessment of his responsibility.

His defenders argue that this explicit reference to peaceful protest contradicts the allegation that Trump intended to provoke violence.

The House impeachment managers argued differently. They maintained that the speech had to be understood within the context of Trump’s months-long campaign challenging the election result, his rhetoric surrounding January 6, and pressure directed toward Pence and other officials (U.S. House of Representatives, 2021).

The Select Committee later examined Trump’s December 19, 2020 announcement promoting the January 6 protest and concluded that his public messaging helped mobilize supporters who ultimately came to Washington (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

The Capitol was subsequently breached.

Members of Congress evacuated or sheltered.

Police officers fought rioters.

The electoral count stopped.

Whatever political terminology one prefers for January 6—riot, attack, insurrection, protest that became violent—the constitutional proceeding was physically disrupted.

That alone made January 6 unlike an ordinary political demonstration.

The 187 Minutes

One of the Select Committee’s most consequential findings concerned what Trump did after the Capitol had been breached.

The committee devoted an entire chapter of its final report to what it called “187 Minutes of Dereliction,” examining the period between the end of Trump’s Ellipse speech and his eventual video message telling supporters to leave the Capitol (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

According to the committee’s reconstruction, people around Trump urged him to intervene publicly while the violence continued. The committee concluded that Trump did not immediately issue an unequivocal public demand that rioters leave the Capitol and that he continued focusing on the electoral count while the attack unfolded (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

Trump and his defenders dispute the committee’s characterization of his actions and intentions.

But the underlying constitutional question is difficult to avoid.

The president of the United States is not merely another political commentator watching a riot on television.

The president heads the executive branch.

When violence physically interrupts Congress while it performs a constitutional function, presidential responsibility is qualitatively different from that of an ordinary citizen.

That is why those 187 minutes matter.

Congress Impeached Him

The House acted one week later.

On January 13, 2021, the House approved H.Res. 24, impeaching Trump for incitement of insurrection. Ten Republicans joined Democrats in voting for impeachment (U.S. House of Representatives, 2021).

Trump’s term ended January 20.

His Senate trial therefore occurred after he had left office, creating a constitutional dispute over whether the Senate retained jurisdiction to try a former president.

The Senate voted 56–44 that Trump remained subject to an impeachment trial for acts committed while president (U.S. Senate, 2021b).

The final vote was considerably more striking.

Fifty-seven senators voted guilty.

Forty-three voted not guilty.

Seven Republican senators joined every Democratic and independent senator voting to convict (U.S. Senate, 2021a).

Under almost any ordinary voting rule, 57–43 would be an overwhelming victory.

Impeachment is deliberately different.

The Constitution requires two-thirds of senators present to convict. Trump therefore was acquitted (U.S. Const. art. I, § 3; U.S. Senate, 2021a).

That acquittal must be respected as the formal constitutional result.

But understanding why some senators voted to acquit is equally important.

Even McConnell Said Trump Was Responsible

Then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted to acquit Trump.

Immediately afterward, however, McConnell delivered a remarkable speech.

He argued that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for provoking the events of January 6 while maintaining that the Senate lacked jurisdiction to convict someone who was no longer president (McConnell, 2021).

In other words, McConnell’s acquittal vote was not an endorsement of Trump’s conduct.

Other Republican senators similarly relied upon jurisdictional arguments in explaining their votes.

That distinction changes the historical meaning of the 43 acquittal votes.

The Senate did not produce 43 senators unanimously declaring that Trump’s conduct was acceptable.

It produced a coalition containing senators who rejected the House’s case on the merits and others who believed the Constitution prevented them from convicting a former president.

Whether that jurisdictional interpretation was correct remains disputed. The Senate itself had already voted 56–44 that it possessed jurisdiction (U.S. Senate, 2021b).

The consequence, however, was unmistakable.

Trump was not convicted.

He was not disqualified from future federal office.

And eventually he returned.

The Criminal Case Never Produced a Verdict

January 6 also entered the criminal justice system.

Special Counsel Jack Smith obtained a federal indictment alleging that Trump conspired to overturn the 2020 election. Trump pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

The case never reached a jury verdict.

After Trump won the 2024 presidential election, prosecutors moved to dismiss the federal case because longstanding Justice Department policy holds that a sitting president cannot be federally prosecuted.

That distinction is critical to the historical record.

The dismissal did not constitute an acquittal after trial.

Nor did the indictment constitute proof of guilt.

The central federal criminal allegations concerning Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election therefore ended without a jury determining guilt or innocence.

Once again, the institutional machinery of accountability reached Trump but did not produce a final adjudication of the underlying allegations.

Then Trump Pardoned the January 6 Defendants

Trump’s return to office transformed January 6 from historical controversy into a matter involving his second presidency.

On January 20, 2025—his first day back in office—Trump issued clemency covering nearly all defendants convicted of offenses related to January 6. He commuted the sentences of specified defendants, granted full pardons to others, and directed the attorney general to seek dismissal of remaining January 6 indictments (The White House, 2025).

The White House has defended those actions aggressively, describing January 6 defendants as victims of politically motivated prosecution and presenting Trump’s clemency as an effort to correct injustice and promote reconciliation (The White House, 2025).

The president unquestionably possesses broad constitutional pardon authority over federal offenses.

The question for this series is therefore not simply whether Trump could issue the pardons.

He could.

The larger question is what their issuance means for presidential accountability.

A president impeached over an attack connected to an effort to prevent the transfer of power returned four years later and used presidential authority to erase or reduce federal criminal consequences for many of the people prosecuted in connection with that attack.

That is constitutionally legal clemency.

It is also historically extraordinary.

Both things can be true simultaneously.

January 6 Cannot Simply Become Article III

There is a temptation for Trump’s opponents to say: January 6 was impeachable in 2021, therefore impeach him for January 6 again in 2026.

That would be a weak way to construct a third impeachment.

Trump has already been impeached and tried for his January 6-related conduct.

A credible new impeachment case should principally concern conduct undertaken during his current presidency.

January 6 instead performs another function.

It provides context.

It tells Congress what happened the last time institutions confronted Trump over alleged abuse of presidential power and an attempt to remain in office after losing an election.

It tells Congress what happened when the House impeached him.

It tells Congress what happened when 57 senators voted to convict him but the constitutional supermajority was not reached.

And Trump’s return to office tells Congress what an acquittal can ultimately mean.

The Cost of No Accountability

This is where January 6 becomes larger than Donald Trump.

The Constitution contains rules governing elections and transfers of power, but those rules ultimately depend upon human beings respecting and enforcing them.

Suppose a future president loses an election.

Suppose that president pressures state officials.

Suppose the president encourages alternative interpretations of electoral law designed to preserve his own power.

Suppose the president pressures the vice president.

Suppose supporters then disrupt the congressional proceeding that formalizes the president’s defeat.

What lesson does January 6 provide that future president?

The answer cannot simply be that everything worked out.

Yes, Congress reconvened.

Yes, the electoral votes were counted.

Yes, Joe Biden became president on January 20, 2021.

The immediate constitutional process survived.

But accountability is a different question.

Trump was impeached.

He was acquitted.

The federal criminal case against him never reached a verdict.

He regained the presidency.

And after returning to office, he exercised presidential clemency for nearly all federal defendants prosecuted for January 6-related offenses (The White House, 2025).

None of those individual events proves that the Constitution has failed.

Taken together, however, they establish a precedent that deserves serious consideration.

Constitutional restraints are partly constructed from expectations. Presidents know that certain actions will bring consequences because previous presidents saw those consequences imposed.

When consequences repeatedly fail to materialize, expectations change.

The danger is not necessarily that another president will reproduce January 6 exactly.

History rarely repeats itself that neatly.

The danger is that a future president will study what happened and conclude that the boundaries can be pushed farther.

Maybe Congress can be pressured more aggressively.

Maybe state officials can be threatened more directly.

Maybe federal law enforcement can be manipulated more effectively.

Maybe an election defeat can be resisted more systematically.

Maybe the next effort will be conducted by people who learned from the mistakes of the previous one.

That is the unfinished business of January 6.

America successfully transferred power on January 20, 2021.

What America never conclusively established was the price a president must pay for attempting to interfere with that transfer.

Donald Trump returned to office before the country settled that question.

Now the answer matters not only for him.

It matters for every president who comes afterward.

References

McConnell, M. (2021, February 13). Remarks following the Senate impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump. United States Senate.

The White House. (2025, January 20). Granting pardons and commutation of sentences for certain offenses relating to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.

U.S. Constitution, art. I, § 3.

U.S. House of Representatives. (2021). Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (H. Res. 24, 117th Cong.).

U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. (2022). Final report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (H. Rept. 117-663). U.S. Government Publishing Office.

U.S. Senate. (2021a, February 13). Roll call vote 59: Article of impeachment against former President Donald John Trump.

U.S. Senate. (2021b, February 9). Roll call vote 57: Whether former President Donald John Trump is subject to a court of impeachment for acts committed while president.