LOWELL — Five years after a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan often thinks about her own experience that day, when she sheltered in place with two staffers in her office.
Trahan, having just begun her second term in Congress, was at the Capitol that day for the vote to certify the election for now former President Joe Biden, who had won the 2020 general election despite repeated claims by Trump that the election had been rigged against him. When the crowd became violent and started to enter the Capitol building, Trahan and her staffers stayed in her office, while dozens of her colleagues fled the Capitol chambers to safe holding rooms as the crowd closed in.
Five years on, and one year into a second Trump administration, Trahan said beyond her own experience, she often thinks of that day in the context of the different reactions Americans had to it.
“It was a representation of how divided our country was, how people got their information, how the president claimed a stolen election and how that was kind of able to take hold,” Trahan said while sitting down with The Sun in her Lowell office Tuesday morning. “When I think of my experience that day, it never leaves you. It was a horrible day in history, it was a horrible day for my family, it was a horrible day for my colleagues. It was just a horrible day for our country.”
Over time, Trahan said she does not want “history to forget what happened.”
“I want to get at the underlying issues, whether it is the divisiveness, the spread of misinformation to cause people who live in the same community to think wildly differently about things that really are factual,” said Trahan. “I walk into the Capitol every single day and see the same two Capitol Police officers. I think about what they went through that day. I think about the obligation we have to them to not let history whitewash what happened that day, and I think about the obligation to make sure an event like that never happens again.”
U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton was also there that day, and recalled to the Boston Herald at the one-year anniversary how he saw Capitol Police gathering for the planned protest by Trump supporters, but was struck by how few officers there were. When the building was being attacked, Moulton was among those who found themselves in a holding room, debating over whether to return to the chambers to finish the certification vote.
Now in 2026, Moulton said the undermining of the democratic process continues to this day.
“Five years ago, Donald Trump tried to overturn the results of a free and fair election by inciting the violence that led to the Jan. 6 insurrection,” Moulton said in a post on Bluesky Tuesday. “Today, his attacks on our democracy continue. We must learn from that day and do everything we can to ensure it never repeats.”
In his own statement on the anniversary, U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern recalled Trump’s own words to the crowd from that day.
“5 years ago today, Trump told a MAGA mob to go to the Capitol and fight like hell. They beat up cops and desecrated our history. He enlisted fraudulent electors and they forged documents to stay in power, despite losing,” McGovern said in a post on Facebook Tuesday. “Then he pardoned everyone involved–including criminals he let out who were then convicted of new crimes such as rape, murder, and possession of child pornography. Right-wing media and the billionaire Epstein class they serve want to rewrite history about what happened. Don’t let them.”
In a statement Monday, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey called those who stormed the Capitol “a vicious and violent mob” which had a goal of overturning the results of the 2020 election.
“Fortunately, Trump and his gang of bigoted, violent extremists failed in their mission to undermine our democracy that day. But Trump continues to bear direct responsibility for this disgraceful, dangerous attack, which forever scarred our political system and our nation,” said Markey. “We cannot, and must not, forget what happened on January 6, 2021, and the enduring consequences of that terrible day. Trump’s MAGA mob attacked the brave officers of the Capitol Police with metal pipes, baseball bats, and chemical sprays, resulting in the death of several officers and injuries to more than 140 members of law enforcement.”
Markey noted Trump’s pardon for hundreds of the Jan. 6 rioters on the first day of his second term last year.
“Trump and his supporters continue to rewrite the truth of that tragic day, whitewashing the violence of the riot and hailing those who carried Confederate flags and symbols of white supremacy through the halls of the Capitol as ‘patriots,’” said Markey. “But true American patriots stand up for democracy. True American patriots don’t bend the knee to wannabe kings. Every American must denounce the actions of those who chose to subvert our Constitution on January 6 and condemn those who continue to side with lawlessness and authoritarianism over the basic principles of American democracy: equality, freedom, and the peaceful transfer of power. Our future depends on it.”
In a post on Bluesky, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren called the Jan. 6 riot and Trump’s pardoning of the rioters “an assault on American democracy.” In a separate post, Warren pointed to the investigation conducted by Special Counsel Jack Smith into the riot and Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. That investigation ended with the dismissal of the charges against Trump in the wake of his victory in 2024, but Smith has since maintained that Trump would have been found guilty if the charges had been allowed to move forward.
“Jack Smith testified to Congress he had ‘proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election.’ In other words, he could prove in court that Trump attempted a coup,” said Warren.
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