After the Jan. 6 attack, Congress agreed to install a permanent plaque to honor the law enforcement personnel who helped protect the U.S. Capitol against pro-Trump rioters. By statute, the plaque would list the names of the officers who served; it would be placed on the western side of the building; and it would be in place by March 2023.
That deadline was almost three years ago. The plaque is done, and it’s ready to be installed, but as The Washington Post reported, it’s currently “sitting in a Capitol basement utility room surrounded by tools and maintenance equipment.”
Architect of the Capitol Thomas Austin confirmed during a congressional hearing in the spring that the only thing standing in the way of installing the plaque is an approval from House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office — approval the Louisiana Republican has not extended for reasons he has not explained. (Austin also needed approval from Senate leaders, which has already happened.)
In light of this intransigence, two Jan. 6 police officers, former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and current Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges, filed a lawsuit over the summer to force congressional leaders to follow the law.
Donald Trump’s Justice Department has weighed in on the case in a wildly unpersuasive way. NBC News reported:
The Trump Justice Department argued Tuesday that the legally mandated plaque meant to honor the officers who protected the Capitol on Jan. 6 does not exist, claiming that the current plaque, which remains unhung, doesn’t qualify because it lists 21 law enforcement agencies rather than the names of roughly 3,646 individual officers who responded to the Capitol during the siege.
In other words, the plaque — which, again, is already finished and ready to be installed — highlights the 21 law enforcement agencies that helped defend the Capitol against the assault.
Trump’s DOJ said that to fully satisfy the law as written, the plaque should actually list the names of all 3,646 officers who responded to the insurrectionist violence.
This is obviously not a serious argument. We know this because the members who wrote the law are still around — most are still in Congress — and they never had any intention of creating a plaque to honor all 3,646 individual officers. But the bottom line remains the same: For all of Trump’s talk about “backing the blue,” the president’s Justice Department is fighting against a simple gesture to honor officers who protected democracy and our seat of government against rioters who’d been fed lies by the president himself. The case is still pending in federal court. Watch this space. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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