WASHINGTON ― House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) called out House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for stalling on installing a plaque to honor police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Congress blew a statutory deadline to put up the plaque somewhere on the Capitol grounds last year, and this month Democrats began to complain about the holdup.
“It’s time for House Republicans to honor the men and women of law enforcement who saved lives that day,” Jeffries said at a press conference, standing next to an image of the apparently finished plaque.
A law Congress passed in 2022 required various committees to gather the names of officers who responded to the mob riot of Donald Trump supporters upset about his election loss. Jeffries said that work had been completed, the plaque had been built, and that it’s up to Johnson to hang it up somewhere.
“It simply awaits a decision by the Republican majority to have an appropriate ceremony of recognition and have it placed in a location of honor here in the United States Capitol,” Jeffries said.
A spokesperson for Johnson said Thursday the speaker’s office is working with the Capitol architect, which oversees the Capitol complex and its maintenance, “to get the plaque mounted,” offering no further details.
Johnson and his Republican colleagues have held multiple events honoring police this week to mark the annual National Police Week. They have been conspicuously silent about the police who fought against Trump’s mob.
Instead, Johnson and others have traveled to New York to stand with Trump at his criminal trial for covering up hush money payments to a past sexual liaison.
On Thursday, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) posted a picture of himself behind Trump at the courthouse with the phrase, “standing back and standing by” — a reference to Trump’s infamous refusal to condemn the Proud Boys, a violent right-wing extremist group, in 2020.
The Proud Boys helped lead the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, and juries have since convicted several of them of seditious conspiracy. Trump has vowed to pardon people charged with crimes for their actions that day.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) first raised the issue of the missing plaque last week in a letter to Johnson.
“I keep in touch with a lot of the officers and it’s upsetting, really, to the officers and their families,” Lofgren told HuffPost on Thursday.
