By Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
CNN
June 28, 2021
(CNN)The violent insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6 was a dark day in American history. The attempted rewriting of what actually happened that day — when more than 100 police officers were injured and five people died — by former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies is even more noxious.
On Wednesday, a federal judge named Royce Lamberth had had enough. Lamberth used the first sentencing hearing for a defendant charged in the attack on the Capitol to blast Republicans trying to cast January 6 as anything other than a violent riot aimed at stopping the wheels of democracy from turning.
“I’m especially troubled by the accounts of some members of Congress that January 6 was just a day of tourists walking through the Capitol,” Lamberth said. “I don’t know what planet they were on. … This was not a peaceful demonstration. It was not an accident that it turned violent; it was intended to halt the very functioning of our government.”