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The White House on Tuesday unveiled a new website that dramatically rewrites the history of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, portraying the pro-Trump mob as “peaceful protesters,” blaming law enforcement for the violence and elevating President Donald Trump’s long-debunked claims of a stolen 2020 election to an official government platform.
The site hails Trump for issuing sweeping pardons to nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack and recasts the rioters as victims, while depicting Trump as a hero who “corrected a historic wrong.”
The webpage marks the most aggressive institutional embrace yet of Trump’s revisionist account of Jan. 6 — moving beyond campaign rhetoric and social media posts to enshrine those claims on the official White House website.
Blaming Police, Reversing Accountability
The site falsely asserts that violence on Jan. 6 was instigated by law enforcement and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, claiming U.S. Capitol Police “deliberately escalated tensions” by using crowd-control measures.
That claim directly contradicts extensive video evidence, court findings and bipartisan congressional investigations showing rioters breached police lines, smashed windows, assaulted officers and forced Congress to halt certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
The website omits footage of rioters beating police with flagpoles and chemical spray, instead describing the crowd as “orderly and spirited.”
It also falsely states that “zero law enforcement officers lost their lives,” ignoring the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who suffered fatal strokes a day after being assaulted during the attack. The District of Columbia medical examiner said “all that transpired” on Jan. 6 contributed to his death. Four other responding officers later died by suicide, and roughly 140 officers were injured during the assault.
Elevating Election Lies
A central theme of the website is Trump’s repeatedly disproven claim that the 2020 election was stolen through widespread fraud — the false premise that fueled the attempt to block Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.
A “timeline” on the site describes Trump’s speech near the White House on Jan. 6 as laying out “evidence of election fraud,” while omitting that courts, state officials and Trump’s own Justice Department had rejected those claims weeks earlier.
The timeline also excludes Trump’s calls for supporters to “fight like hell,” instead emphasizing his use of the word “peacefully.”
Targeting Pence and Pelosi
The website echoes Trump’s claim that then-Vice President Mike Pence could have rejected certified electoral votes — a theory rejected by Pence, constitutional scholars and Trump advisers across the political spectrum, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The site accuses Pence of acting “in cowardice and sabotage” by following the Constitution.
Pelosi is cast as a primary villain based on comments from an HBO documentary in which she said, regarding Capitol security preparations, “I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more.” The site uses the remark to bolster Trump’s repeated — and unsubstantiated — claim that Pelosi rejected an offer to deploy 10,000 National Guard troops.
Pelosi has consistently denied receiving such an offer, and control of the D.C. National Guard rests with the president, not the House speaker.
“January 6th was not an aberration and it was not spontaneous,” Pelosi said in a statement Tuesday. “It was the culmination of a sustained assault on truth, on the rule of law, and the peaceful transfer of power.”
Pardons Framed as Patriotism
The site labels all of the nearly 1,600 people pardoned or granted clemency by Trump as “patriotic Americans.” That group includes members of far-right extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, individuals convicted of violently assaulting police officers, alleged white supremacists and defendants who brought weapons to the Capitol.
The site also frames Trump as a victim who was “silenced” by social media companies and “debanked” by major financial institutions after Jan. 6.
White House communications director Steven Cheung suggested on social media that the page was designed to provoke media outrage.
The move effectively cements Trump’s alternate version of Jan. 6 as the official position of the executive branch — five years after the deadliest attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812.
