WASHINGTON — The U.S. Congress awarded the Congressional Gold Medal Tuesday to guards who defended the Capitol in the Jan. 6, 2021 assault, nearly two years after the brutal attack by supporters of former President Donald Trump.
The speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, praised the “heroes” when opening the ceremony in the Rotunda of the Capitol, which that day was devastated by a mob of Trump supporters who wanted to prevent the certification of the result of the elections. 2020 elections.
Pelosi praised the House guards for “courageously answering the call to defend our democracy in one of our nation’s darkest moments.”
Present at the ceremony were Pelosi, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. Also in attendance were Capitol Police Commander Thomas Manger and Metropolitan Police Commander Robert Contee.
To recognize the hundreds of officers who defended the Capitol, the medals will be placed in four locations: Capitol Police Headquarters, Metropolitan Police Headquarters, Capitol Hill, and the Smithsonian Institution. When he signed the executive order awarding the medals last year, President Joe Biden said a medal would be placed in the Smithsonian “so all visitors can know what happened that day.”
The ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda came as Democrats, who just lost their majority in the House, are racing to wrap up their investigation into the insurrection. Lawmakers have vowed to uncover details of the assault, which occurred as Trump tried to reverse the election results and urged his supporters to “fight it all out” just before the certification ceremony in Congress.
It was also one of the last ceremonial acts of Pelosi, the speaker of the Democratic House of Representatives who must leave office. When the bill passed the House more than a year ago, Pelosi said the guardsmen deserved recognition because they were “the kind of American who heard the call to serve and responded, putting country above their own well-being.”
“They allowed us to go back to the Capitol” that day to certify Biden’s victory, he added, “to that podium that night, to show the world that our democracy has triumphed and that it triumphed because of them.”
On the day of the assault, a large number of guards suffered serious injuries. Trump supporters beat them with sticks and even their own weapons, dragged them down stairs, sprayed them with chemicals, pushed and crushed them. Several guards were unable to return to work for a long time due to physical injuries such as concussions, or because of the psychological trauma caused by the episode.