Jan. 6 attack, a cornerstone of Donald Trump’s bid for the U.S. White House

Donald Trump's revisionist history of the Capitol attack shapes his 2024 campaign, despite facing federal indictment and backlash.

Republican Donald Trump has launched his general election campaign not merely rewriting the history of the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, but positioning the violent siege and its failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election as a cornerstone of his bid to return to the White House.

At a weekend rally in Ohio, his first as the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee, Mr. Trump stood onstage, his hand raised in salute to the brim of his red MAGA hat, as a recorded chorus of prisoners in jail for their roles in the January 6 attack sang the national anthem.

An announcer asked the crowd to please rise “for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages.” And people did, and sang along.

“They were unbelievable patriots,” Mr. Trump said as the recording ended. Having previously vowed to pardon the rioters, he promised to help them “the first day we get into office.”

Initially relegated to a fringe theory on the edges of the Republican Party, the revisionist history of January 6, which Mr. Trump amplified during the early days of the GOP primary campaign to rouse his most devoted voters, remains a rally centerpiece even as he must appeal broadly to a general election audience.

In heaping praise on the rioters, Mr. Trump is shifting blame for his own role in the run-up to the bloody mob siege and asking voters to absolve hundreds of them — and himself — over the deadliest attack on a seat of American power in 200 years.

At the same time, Mr. Trump’s allies are installing 2020 election-deniers to the Republican National Committee, further institutionalising the lies that spurred the violence. That raises red flags about next year, when Congress will again be called upon to certify the vote.