Biden Marks Second Jan. 6 Anniversary With Honors For Those Who Held Line Against Trump

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden awarded high honors to 14 police officers and local officials Friday for their work blocking Donald Trump’s attempted coup two years earlier in his last-gasp effort to undo the election he had lost in 2020.

“History will remember your names,” Biden told the honorees and family members there to represent deceased recipients. “What you did was truly consequential.”

The ceremony in the White House East Room presented the Presidential Citizens Medal to current and former officers Michael Fanone, Eugene Goodman and Caroline Edwards, as well as to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the mother-daughter team of election workers in Atlanta who faced death threats after Trump repeatedly targeted them in his remarks.

“Ruby and Shaye, you did not deserve what happened but you, but you do deserve the nation’s eternal thanks for showing the dignity and grace of we the people,” Biden said.

Republican Rusty Bowers, the outgoing Arizona House speaker who was pressured by Trump to overturn the election in that state, was honored, as was Democrat Jocelyn Benson, the Michigan secretary of state who contended with threats from Trump supporters there, and Al Schmidt, who faced similar attacks as a Republican city commissioner in Philadelphia.

President Joe Biden holds a ceremony to mark the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Among the honorees were U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, U.S. Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman and Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges.

Officers Aquilino Gonell, Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges, who had his head crushed in a doorway amid the Capitol riot, also received medals.

The parents of Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police officer who died of multiple strokes hours after being assaulted by Trump’s mob, received the medal on his son’s behalf.

“I know you’re proud of the honor bestowed on Brian, but I also know the difficulty of this moment because it brings back everything that happened on that day,” Biden told them.

Also honored posthumously were officers Howard Liebengood and Jeffrey Smith, who both died by suicide days after suffering severe injuries during the Capitol assault.

“Jan. 6 is a reminder that there’s nothing guaranteed about our democracy,” Biden said. “Despite our differences of opinion, we must say clearly with a united voice there’s no place ― zero, zero ― in America for voter intimidation or political violence.”

Bowers, who lost his state Senate bid in Arizona in the Republican primary because of his refusal to knuckle under to Trump, said afterward he was still in disbelief about the day. “It’s all very surreal. Tomorrow I’ll wake up and go, huh? What do you do to merit it?” he said.

The unprecedented attempt to overturn the election has been a focus of Biden’s presidency to date. As president-elect, he went before the cameras on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, to demand that Trump call off the rioters he had incited. “It’s not protest. It’s insurrection,” he said from his transition headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.

Trump, after trying but failing to personally lead his followers to the Capitol to block the ceremony certifying his election loss, stayed in the White House, watching the violence unfold for three hours before finally releasing a video telling them to leave the building.

After taking office three weeks later, Biden told Americans that Jan. 6 had been an attack on democracy itself, and fairly regularly reminded the country that Trump and his supporters were continuing to spread the same lies about a “stolen” election that had caused the violence in the first place.

“For the first time in our history, a president had not just lost an election; he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol,” he said in his 25-minute speech delivered at the Capitol itself to mark the one-year anniversary. “And on this day of remembrance, we must make sure that such an attack never, never happens again.”

Biden continued hitting that theme as the midterms approached last autumn, giving a speech just five days before the election to warn of the threat presented by “MAGA Republican” candidates who continued to embrace Trump.

“American democracy is under attack because the defeated former president of the United States refuses to accept the results of the 2020 election. He refuses to accept the will of the people. He refuses to accept the fact that he lost,” Biden said.

To the surprise of many political observers, concern about democracy played a significant role in Democrats’ unexpectedly good performance in the midterms, as many voters — including a significant number of Republicans — turned against candidates who had been endorsed by Trump and who continued to spread his election lies.

Despite losing the 2020 election by 7 million votes nationally and 306-232 in the Electoral College, Trump became the first president in more than two centuries of U.S. elections to refuse to hand over power peacefully. His incitement of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol ― a last-ditch attempt to remain in office ― led to the deaths of five people, including a police officer, as well as the injury of 140 other officers and four police suicides.

Nevertheless, Trump remains the dominant figure in the Republican Party and has already declared his candidacy to seek the presidency again in 2024.

In statements on his personal social media platform, Trump has continued to lie about the election and the House Jan. 6 committee’s work, which he has called a “hoax” similar to previous investigations into his 2016 campaign’s acceptance of Russian assistance and his attempt to extort Ukraine into helping his 2020 run.

Igor Bobic contributed to this report.

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