Anniversary of rancour

PROTEST: PARDONED RETRACE STEPS AS DEMOCRATS REVIVE HEARINGS

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Washington on Tuesday marked five years since a mob overran the US Capitol, with rioters pardoned by Donald Trump retracing their steps even as Democrats revived hearings to hold the president accountable.

The anniversary highlights a nation divided between irreconcilable accounts of an attack that reshaped American politics - one supported by official findings of a violent bid to overturn an election, the other portraying it as a protest unjustly criminalised.

"Five years ago today, a violent mob brutally attacked the US Capitol on 6 January. Their mission was to overturn a free and fair election. We will never allow extremists to whitewash their treachery," top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries posted on X.

Trump supporters gathered in Washington on 6 January, 2021, after the president urged them to protest Congress' certification of his election defeat to Joe Biden.