The House GOP’s new January 6 committee is claiming the failed coupe we all watched on live television… didn’t actually happen. (Surprise.)

WHAT’S GOING ON: Republicans who spent years downplaying the Capitol attack have now produced an official counter-narrative to the original bipartisan January 6 investigation.

The new committee, crafted by GOP members, attempts to rewrite history by minimizing the violence, shifting blame away from Donald Trump, and portraying the rioters as something other than what they were: a violent mob attempting to overturn a democratic election.

This is the same party that blocked a bipartisan independent commission, then complained the House select committee was too partisan, and has now created their own version of events that conveniently exonerates their leader.

BUT BUT BUT: We have the receipts. We have hours of footage showing rioters beating police officers with flagpoles. We have the gallows erected for Mike Pence. We have over 1,400 people charged with federal crimes. We have more than 200 police officers injured. We have Trump’s own words telling the crowd to “fight like hell” before they marched to the Capitol.

None of that disappears because Republicans produced a new committee saying otherwise.

OF COURSE: This was always the plan. The GOP has systematically worked to normalize January 6 since the moment it happened. First it was “Antifa.” Then it was “legitimate political discourse.” Then it was “political prisoners.” Now it’s an official congressional report designed to give the revisionist history a veneer of legitimacy.

Trump, meanwhile, has called the rioters “patriots” and “hostages,” pardoned many of those convicted, and continues to spread the same election lies that sparked the attack in the first place.

WHY IT MATTERS: This isn’t just about relitigating 2021. It’s about setting the stage for the future. If you can convince enough people that an attempted coup was actually a peaceful protest gone slightly wrong, you make the next attempt that much easier to execute—and that much harder to prosecute.

The original January 6 committee produced thousands of pages of evidence, conducted hundreds of interviews, and laid out a clear case that Trump and his allies orchestrated a multi-pronged effort to stay in power. This new GOP report isn’t a rebuttal—it’s propaganda designed to muddy the waters.

BOTTOM LINE: You can produce all the reports you want. You cannot unring the bell. Millions of Americans watched the insurrection happen in real time. The lies aren’t meant to convince people who know the truth—they’re meant to give permission to those who want to pretend it away.

Don’t let them.