Washington on Tuesday marked five years since a mob overran the U.S. Capitol, with rioters pardoned by Donald Trump retracing their steps even as Democrats revive hearings to hold the president accountable.

The anniversary highlighted a nation divided between irreconcilable accounts of an attack that reshaped American politics -- one supported by official findings of a violent bid to overturn an election, the other portraying it as a protest unjustly criminalized.

"Five years ago today, a violent mob brutally attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Their mission was to overturn a free and fair election. We will never allow extremists to whitewash their treachery," top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries posted on X.

Trump supporters gathered in Washington on January 6, 2021 after the president urged them to protest Congress's certification of his election defeat to Joe Biden.

Several thousand breached the Capitol grounds, overwhelming police lines........

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