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At least one of those officers, Brian Sicknick, died after collapsing from two strokes during the attack. Several others shortly after by suicide. At least 140 officers who pushed back at Trump’s thugs that day were wounded, many of them seriously.

In a sane political world, those thugs would all be moldering in prisons right now, and Trump would have been rendered a permanent pariah to both parties and every serious voter in America, if not incarcerated himself. Alas, we’re not in that world. Trump is back in the White House, and his self-proclaimed “law-and-order party� is playing accomplice to his attempts to rewrite the history of that tragic day, venerating the thugs and erasing the thin blue line.

The congressional acquiescence to that project is especially pathetic. The current GOP House majority is refusing to carry out the legally mandated installation of a modest plaque in the Capitol to honor those officers. Indeed, they are refusing to even talk about it. Every police officer in America — and every American who claims to honor those officers — should be loudly asking why.

In 2022, a House-approved spending package included authorizing a Capitol memorial to the police agencies that protected that Capitol that day.

The House was under Democratic control at the time and Democratic President Joe Biden signed the measure into law. But to suggest those circumstances made it “partisan� legislation would be to concede that the GOP was no longer supportive of law enforcement if it conflicted with Trump’s self-interest. Indeed, the votes of the 39 House Republicans who supported the measure would seem to dispute that notion.

Yet three years later, the plaque is, as recently put it, “sitting in a Capitol basement utility room surrounded by tools and maintenance equipment.� The office of the Architect of the Capitol says that (notwithstanding the federal law that was passed) it cannot install it until House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., directs it. So far, that office hasn’t.

Lest anyone imagine there is some hidden partisan agenda within the text of memorial, here is what it says, in its entirety: “On behalf of a grateful Congress, this plaque honors the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy on January 6, 2021. Their heroism will never be forgotten.� It goes on to list the more than 20 law enforcement agencies that defended the Capitol that day.

What serious American political leader could possibly object to that?

None could — unless of course they’re members of a political party whose standardbearer and president has, to his and the nation’s eternal shame, blanket-pardoned most of the almost 1,600 attackers of the Capitol. Including those who assaulted and in some cases possibly contributed to the deaths of police officers. Including more than a dozen who were convicted of seditious conspiracy.

As if that bid to erase history wasn’t enough, the Trump administration last month paid almost $5 million to settle the bizarre wrongful-death claim filed by the family of .

Any death in such circumstances is tragic. But this was someone who was shot after she ignored officers’ shouted warnings to cease while breaking through a window to illegally enter the Capitol. How is it possible that the family of an assailant against democracy gets a seven-figure settlement from the taxpayers, but those same taxpayers’ elected representatives cannot bring themselves to install a 43-by-32-inch plaque honoring the police officers who protected the Capitol from the likes of her?

We tried to ask Missouri’s highest-ranking House member, Rep. Jason Smith, Republican chair of the House Ways & Means Committee, but we didn’t hear back from his press office.

So we’ll just quote from Smith’s office posted during National Police Week last month, titled “The Thin Blue Line.�

“When President Trump talks about bringing back common sense, there is no issue where he means it more than on crime,� gushes Smith’s post. It goes on to list a litany of crimes that America has endured lately. But is utterly silent regarding the one that never happened in the history of our country before Jan. 6, 2021 — the one that attacked not just individuals, but our entire form of government. That one that Trump himself enabled.

“This week — and every week — I am so grateful for our nation’s police officers, and I join in saying ‘Thank You’ to the men and women who protect us,'� says Smith’s post.

If he meant that, he would, along with the rest of his GOP colleagues, press Speaker Johnson to prioritize respect for the law above this lawless president and install that plaque.