Key Moments Leading Up to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol Attack

A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. indicted former President Donald Trump in connection with his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by Trump supporters on the Capitol.

Here is a look at the events leading up to the Capitol riot.

(This timeline is based on reporting by The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets, congressional investigations and other public documents.)

The Beginnings of ‘Stop the Steal’

2016: Stop the Steal, a political group launched by Trump associate Roger Stone, begins warning that voter fraud will sway the Republican primary in favor of competitors to Donald Trump. After Mr. Trump wins the Republican nomination, the group turns its focus to the general election and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. Mr. Stone says its aim is to produce evidence of a rigged election that the Trump campaign could use in court. Mr. Trump wins the election.

2018: Ali Alexander, a right-wing political operative, revives Mr. Stone’s Stop the Steal efforts for the midterm elections, focusing on a recount in a Senate race between Florida Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Rick Scott, then the state’s governor. “We have to go to FLORIDA to #StopTheSteal,” he tweets on Nov. 9. The far-right group Proud Boys and Mr. Stone join the protest.

2020

July 10: Mr. Trump commutes Mr. Stone’s 40-month prison sentence for making false statements, witness tampering and trying to impede a congressional investigation into Russian election interference.

July 26: Mr. Trump ramps up claims that the coming election will be fraudulent, targeting mail-in voting. “The 2020 Election will be totally rigged if Mail-In Voting is allowed to take place,” he tweets.

Aug. 24: The Republican National Convention begins in Charlotte, N.C. “The only way they can take this election from us is if this is a rigged election,” Mr. Trump says.

Sept. 23: Asked if he would commit to the peaceful transfer of power if he lost the 2020 election, Mr. Trump says: “Well, we’re going to have to see what happens. You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.”

Sept. 29: In the first presidential debate, when asked to condemn white supremacists by the debate’s moderator, Chris Wallace, Mr. Trump tells the Proud Boys militia group to “stand back and stand by.”

Nov. 3: Election Day

Trump Claims Election Was Stolen, Searches for Fraud

Nov. 4: Mr. Trump claims victory despite signs Mr. Biden was taking the lead. “Frankly, we did win this election,” he says.

Nov. 6: Election officials in deep-red Antrim County, Mich., reverse an election snafu due to human error that mistakenly awarded some 3,000 Trump votes to Joe Biden. The events in Antrim spark a conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting machines the county used were hacked. Rep. Andy Biggs (R., Ariz.) texts White House chief of staff

Nov. 7: The Associated Press declares Mr. Biden the victor in the 2020 election. Trump lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks to the media in the parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia alleging voter fraud.

Nov. 14: Mr. Trump says in a tweet that he is putting Mr. Giuliani in charge of his election legal challenges. Pro-Trump protest groups descend on Washington, D.C. Many chant “Stop the Steal.” Infowars’ Alex Jones and the Proud Boys join the protests.

Nov. 15: Mr. Stone promotes a conspiracy theory called the Hammer and the Scorecard that claims the CIA used a supercomputer to alter the vote. Homeland Security cybersecurity head Chris Krebs calls the theory “nonsense.” 

Nov. 19: Mr. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, speaking at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., make allegations of election fraud and conspiracy between Democrats and foreign governments. Ms. Powell claims the election was rigged by “communist money” from Cuba and China. Days later, Mr. Giuliani says Ms. Powell isn’t part of the president’s legal team.

Dec. 1: Then-Attorney General Bill Barr tells the Associated Press in an interview: “We have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”

Dec. 3: Constitutional law professor John Eastman testifies before the Georgia legislature that the state could nullify the state’s 2020 presidential election results and send an alternative slate of pro-Trump electors to Congress.

Dec. 7: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton files a complaint with the U.S. Supreme Court alleging that Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had made unconstitutional changes in election law. The suit asks the court to allow the state legislatures to select Electoral College delegates. Two-thirds of Republican state attorneys general support the complaint. The Supreme Court declines to hear it.

Dec. 13: A team of investigators called Allied Security Operations Group, or ASOG, led by Texas businessman Russell Ramsland, releases a report alleging that the Dominion machines could be manipulated to alter votes. An analysis of the report by a University of Michigan computer-science professor showed it contained “an extraordinary number of false, inaccurate, or unsubstantiated statements and conclusions.”

Dec. 14: The Electoral College votes to make Joe Biden the next president. Republicans in battleground states Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin assemble fake slates of electors to send to Congress. Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller says on Fox News that “as we speak today an alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote and we’re going to send those results up to Congress. This will ensure that all of our legal remedies remain open.”

Mr. Barr informs Mr. Trump that he is resigning effective Dec. 23. Mr. Trump names Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen as his replacement. Molly Michael, special assistant to the president, emails Mr. Rosen talking points “From POTUS” about claims of voter fraud in Antrim County, Mich., and the ASOG report on the Dominion machines. “The ASOG report and associated talking points contained a series of demonstrably false claims,” a Senate investigation later found.

Dec. 15: “This Fake Election can no longer stand,” Mr. Trump tweets. “Get moving Republicans.”

Dec. 17: Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s onetime national security adviser, in an interview on Newsmax, suggests Mr. Trump could deploy the military in swing states and “basically rerun an election in each of those states.” Trump aide Peter Navarro releases an extensive report alleging widespread voter fraud in battleground states in the 2020 election.

Dec. 19: Plans coalesce for a Stop the Steal rally on Jan. 6. Mr. Trump tweets: “Be there, will be wild!”

Dec. 26: Mr. Trump tweets: “Never give up. See everyone in D.C. on January 6th.”

Dec. 27: Mr. Trump in a phone call presses Mr. Rosen and his deputy, Richard Donoghue, to declare the 2020 election corrupt. “Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen,” Mr. Trump says, according to contemporaneous notes taken by Mr. Donoghue. Mr. Rosen tells Mr. Trump the Justice Department can’t change the outcome of the election. Near the end of the call, Mr. Trump says he has heard that Jeff Clark, a Justice Department official, “is great, I should put him in. People want me to replace DOJ leadership.”

Rep. Scott Perry (R., Pa.) calls Mr. Donoghue and tells him that Mr. Trump asked him to call and tell him that the Justice Department “hadn’t done its job with respect to the elections,” according to a Senate Judiciary Committee report on the White House’s pressure campaign on the Justice Department. Mr. Perry recommends Mr. Clark, according to the report.

Dec. 28: Mr. Clark approaches Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue with a plan to tell the Georgia legislature and other states that the Justice Department is investigating allegations of voting fraud and suggest that the legislatures call a special session to consider alternate slates of electors. Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue reject the proposal.

2021

Jan. 2: Mr. Trump asks Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes.” 

Jan. 3: “Stop the Steal’s propensity to attract white supremacists, militia members, and others who actively promote violence, may lead to a significantly dangerous situation for law enforcement and the general public alike,” the Capitol Police write in an intelligence assessment.

Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue meet with Mr. Trump at the White House, according to a Senate investigation.

They are joined by Steven Engel, head of the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, his deputy Patrick Philbin, and Mr. Clark. During the meeting, Mr. Trump tells Mr. Rosen he knows he won’t “do anything to overturn the election.” Mr. Trump proposes replacing Mr. Rosen with Mr. Clark. Mr. Donoghue and Mr. Engel tell Mr. Trump that all assistant attorneys general and other senior Justice officials would resign if Mr. Trump replaced Mr. Rosen with Mr. Clark. Mr. Trump backs down.

Jan. 4: In a rally in Georgia a day before the state’s Senate runoff, Mr. Trump tells supporters: “When you win in a landslide and they steal it and it’s rigged, it’s not acceptable.”

Pressure on Pence; Riot at the Capitol

Jan. 5: A website launched by Mr. Alexander, Wildprotest.com, instructs protesters to congregate at the Capitol at 1 p.m. “We the People must take to the US Capitol lawn and steps and tell Congress #DoNotCertify on #JAN6!,” the site says, according to an archived version.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) sends a text to Mr. Meadows that reads: “On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all,” according to text messages on Mr. Meadows’s phone obtained by CNN.

Jan. 6

1 a.m.: President Trump tweets: “If Vice President @Mike_Pence comes through for us, we will win the Presidency. Many States want to decertify the mistake they made in certifying incorrect & even fraudulent numbers in a process NOT approved by their State Legislatures (which it must be.) Mike can send it back!”

11:35 a.m.: A group of Proud Boys is already gathered on the east side of the Capitol, according to videos of the scene.

11:57 a.m.: Mr. Trump takes the stage to address thousands of supporters. “We will stop the steal,” he says. “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.” He tells supporters to march to the Capitol and promises to join them. He returns to the White House. Thousands of protesters head toward the Capitol.

12:53 p.m.: Then-Vice President Mike Pence releases a letter in which he says he doesn’t have authority to overturn the will of voters, rejecting pressure from Mr. Trump. “I do not believe that the Founders of our country intended to invest the Vice President with unilateral authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted during the Joint Session of Congress,” he said.

Meanwhile, Trump supporters knock down the first row of barricades and the crowd begins pushing up the stairs toward a second line of barricades as thousands of protesters stream in from the rally on the National Mall. Within minutes, the small number of Capitol Police guarding the barricade retreat up the stairs and up the lawn, giving protesters unrestricted access to the lower stairs and the west lawn of the Capitol.

12:57 p.m.: The first group reaches the west side of the Capitol and begins to clash with officers, shoving and yelling “Traitors!”

1 p.m.: Mr. Pence and senators walk to the House chamber to begin the joint session convened to certify the Electoral College result.

1:11 p.m.: Mr. Trump concludes his speech at the Ellipse.

Around 2:10 p.m.: The crowd on the left side of the stairs on the west side of the Capitol storms past police. Within minutes, dozens and then hundreds of people begin pushing up the stairs. With the police having retreated, people start climbing the walls of the Capitol and flooding onto balconies.

2:24 p.m.: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” Mr. Trump tweets.

2:26 p.m.: Mr. Pence is evacuated to a secure location.

2:30 p.m.: The House is abruptly adjourned, and House lawmakers are told to be prepared to hide under their chairs. The Senate chamber is evacuated.

2:44 p.m.: With rioters surging into the Capitol, an officer fires a shot outside the House chamber at a woman who was trying to climb through a glass entryway. Authorities later confirm Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran from San Diego whose social-media posts include angry video rants urging fellow Trump supporters to act, died from gunshot injuries.

4:17 p.m.: In a recorded statement, Mr. Trump tells protesters to go home. “You have to go home now, we have to have peace…we love you, you’re very special,” he says.

Shortly after 5 p.m.: Law-enforcement officers in riot gear—the largest show of force of the day—deploy in front of entrances to the Capitol and position themselves for a concerted effort to clear the hundreds of protesters still encircling the Capitol. The crowd thins out significantly as 6 p.m. approaches, the start of the city’s curfew.

6:01 p.m.: Mr. Trump tweets, “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”

Jan. 7

3:32 a.m.: Mr. Pence affirms Mr. Biden’s election victory after Congress certifies the results.

Jan. 8: Twitter bans Mr. Trump’s account.

Jan. 13: The House impeaches Mr. Trump for the second time.

Jan. 20: Mr. Biden is inaugurated as president.

Feb. 13: The Senate votes to acquit Mr. Trump, with 57 voting for conviction and 43 voting for acquittal.

2022

Nov. 18: Attorney General Merrick Garland appoints former federal and international war-crimes prosecutor Jack Smith as special counsel to oversee Justice Department investigations into Trump.

2023

June 8: Trump is indicted by a federal grand jury in the investigation into his handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, marking the first time in history that the Justice Department has criminally charged a former president.

July 18: Federal prosecutors tell Trump’s legal team that he is a target of their investigation into efforts to undo his loss in the 2020 election

Aug. 1: A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. charges Trump with four crimes, including conspiring to defraud the U.S., obstructing an official proceeding, and conspiring against the rights of voters for his actions that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Write to Scott Patterson at [email protected]