Lawfare Daily: Jan. 6, 2026: Five Years of Congressional Action and Inaction
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2026
⏱️ 65 minutes
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Summary
Today is the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol. That day marked the beginning of a reckoning across the entirety of the U.S. government. How did this happen? What does it mean? And how do we stop it from happening again?
On today's podcast, Executive Editor Natalie Orpett discusses how Congress has been responding to these questions with current and former Lawfare senior editors Eric Columbus, Quinta Jurecic, and Molly Reynolds. They talk about what Congress has done, what it hasn’t, and how we should understand the legacy of Jan. 6—so far.
You can read, watch, and listen to Lawfare's five years of Jan. 6 analysis on our website.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | many people would argue that lots of this wasn't actually necessary, that Mike Pence didn't have |
| 0:06.8 | the authority to throw out a particular slate of electors and that sort of thing. But the members |
| 0:12.4 | of Congress figured out how to go in and shore up some of this. It's the Lawfare podcast. |
| 0:19.7 | I'm Natalie Orpat, executive editor of Lawfare, with my colleagues, |
| 0:23.6 | current and former Lawfare senior editors, Eric Columbus, Quinta Jurassic, and Molly Reynolds. |
| 0:29.7 | Is Congress the right venue, the right decision maker to determine who actually won the election, |
| 0:36.9 | or do we need a Supreme Court |
| 0:39.3 | that is more insulated from popular pressure to be the ultimate arbiter in a case where political |
| 0:47.1 | actors try to for the popular will? It's January 6, 26. The five-year anniversary of the day thousands of Trump supporters |
| 0:56.2 | stormed the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election of Joe Biden. |
| 1:02.5 | Today, we're looking back at what Congress has done since then, what it hasn't, and how we |
| 1:07.7 | should understand the legacy of January 6th so far. |
| 1:11.7 | So here we are, thinking back five years later. |
| 1:16.2 | Quinta, as I recall, January 6th was a peaceful, loving protest of patriots. |
| 1:21.7 | Is that correct? |
| 1:22.8 | Yes, that is exactly what happened. |
| 1:25.5 | No, in all seriousness, it is very strange to think that January 6 was almost five years ago now, |
| 1:34.9 | because in some ways it feels even more distant. |
| 1:38.1 | And in some ways, it feels so, so recent. |
| 1:43.1 | I think it's really hard to communicate to people who were not in D.C. on |
| 1:50.6 | that day, just how violent and frightening it really was and how much uncertainty there was about |
| 1:59.5 | what was happening, whether people were going to be safe, |
... |
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