A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Four years ago today, a crowd of then-President Trump's supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to try and stop Congress from certifying President Biden's election win. The mob injured some 140 law enforcement officers, forced lawmakers into hiding and threatened the peaceful transfer of power. None of that comes up on the official tours of the Capitol building, a sign of how divided lawmakers and the public remain. Here's NPR congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt.
UNIDENTIFIED TOUR GUIDE: We're going to start walking over towards the painting there.
BARBARA SPRUNT, BYLINE: Dawn and Onel Gonzalez (ph) recently visited Washington from Florida, a trip that included a tour of the U.S. Capitol.
DAWN GONZALEZ: We learned a lot. I like the statues. I like the rotunda. It was beautiful.
ONEL GONZALEZ: It was a great tour. I loved it.
SPRUNT: They said what happened in this building on January 6, 2021, wasn't mentioned by their tour guide.
O GONZALEZ: I was fine because I don't think anything bad happened on January 6. I thought it was a political hit job, you know, it was all made up.
SPRUNT: The FBI considers the attack on the Capitol an act of domestic terrorism and estimates around 2,000 people took part in criminal acts, including using weapons to assault police officers. But despite documentaries, investigations and reports detailing the level of violence, there's still divergent views about what happened and who's to blame.
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BENNIE THOMPSON: In a staggering betrayal of his oath, Donald Trump attempted a plan that led to an attack on a pillar of our democracy.
SPRUNT: That's Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson, a Democrat, speaking during a 2022 hearing of the select committee that investigated the attack. The committee's report found Trump directed a mob he knew was armed to the Capitol in an attempt to stay in power. The special counsel investigating January 6 brought federal election interference charges against Trump, but those charges were dropped after he won reelection.
Footage shows riders trampling police as they pushed past barricades, smashed windows, broke into congressional offices, defaced hallways - the same hallways that nearly 2 million tourists a year walk through when they visit. Former Congressman Anthony D'Esposito, a Republican, sat on the House Administration Committee, one of the bodies that oversees the Capitol Visitor Center, which operates the tours.
ANTHONY D'ESPOSITO: I don't think that it's necessary when giving a tour in this building to talk about January 6. This institution carries with it hundreds of years of history and tradition focused on the forward movement of this great country, and I think that should be the focus when touring.
SPRUNT: And that is the policy for tour guides - focus on the art, architecture and history.
JAMIE RASKIN: The art was defaced, and the architecture was defiled. And this is living history. The idea of not bringing it up strikes me as ridiculous.
SPRUNT: That's Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin. He was on the committee that investigated the attack.
RASKIN: Thousands and thousands of people come here every year who are fascinated to try to find out where the Capitol was breached and where the violence took place and where the evacuation was for the members. And I think it's a story that should be told in detail.
SPRUNT: It's a message that resonates with Gabriel (ph), who lives in D.C. and is visiting the Capitol for the first time. We're using his first name only because he's prohibited by his employer from talking about politics publicly.
GABRIEL: I think everything that we don't know about, we're bound to repeat somehow. It's important to know what happened. And, yeah, it's political. But, I mean, we're in the Congress, so that's all political, right (laughter)?
SPRUNT: As time has gone on, the politics around talking about January 6 for some have gotten harder, not easier. Trump isn't just a former president. He's the incoming president and leader of the Republican Party. And a majority of his party doesn't want to revisit or relitigate what happened that day. As for Trump, he said one of the first things he'll do when he returns to the White House in two weeks is pardon at least some of those convicted of crimes related to the riot.
Barbara Sprunt, NPR News, the Capitol.
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