The one-year anniversary of the attack on the Capitol was marked by a surprise visit by former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The former vice president told reporters that he was there to support his daughter, Liz Cheney, who is the vice chair of the House Select Committee. He wanted to come to Washington to remember the dark day.
It is an important historical event. Dick Cheney and his daughter entered the House chamber for a moment of silence.
The former VP was right when he said that every seat on the Republican half of the chamber was empty.
Liz Cheney has become a pariah within her party due to her refusal to downplay the significance of the insurrection and her condemnation of former President Donald Trump for inciting it.
Republicans were absent on Thursday as Democrats held events around the Capitol.
Liz Cheney was the only elected member of the GOP who attended the morning session in the House.
A few Republican senators released written statements that acknowledged the tragedy of a day when thousands of Trump supporters broke into the capitol in a failed attempt to prevent the Senate from certifying President Joe Biden's election win over Trump.
The sadness and anger of knowing that Americans interfered with the certification of a lawful election remains with me, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
We ignore the lessons of January 6 at our own peril. Romney said that democracy is fragile and cannot survive without integrity and character.
The Senate Republican policy luncheons will be held at the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC on April 29, 2021.
The 7 Republican senators who voted last year to convict Trump of inciting the attack were the only ones to make public statements on Thursday.
The other five who voted to convict were Maine's Susan Collins, North Carolina's Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Ben Sasse of Nebraska.
The anniversary of the attack was briefly addressed by Collins and Cassidy. The violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election had been a failure, according to a statement given by Sasse. Neither of them publicly marked the anniversary.
Republicans accused Democrats of using the anniversary as a political weapon to attack them.
Kevin McCarthy wrote a letter to his caucus saying the actions of that day were lawless and wrong. He claimed that Democrats were using it as a partisan political weapon.
Dick Cheney watches his daughter take the oath of office on the House floor.
Much of the fault lies with GOP leaders for the elder Cheney, who served in the House for a decade in the 1980s.
Dick Cheney said at the Capitol that he was disappointed that the Republican Party did not have better leadership to restore the Constitution.
While McCarthy and McConnell are the elected leaders of the Republican party, it is Trump who wields the most power.
Over the past year, Trump and his allies have worked to create a false, alternative version of what happened. The marchers who beat Capitol Police officers and demanded that Vice President Mike Pence be hanged are not rioters.
On Thursday, Trump issued a series of statements repeating his false claims about the 2020 election, which he lost to Biden by more than 6 million votes.
