There is something very special about being on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. This is where the laws are made. With its 435 members, it is the legislative chamber that is closest to the views and beliefs of the American people. This is sacred space. There is decorum. There are rules.

A desecration of democracy: Trump supporters inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021.Credit: AP

Three years ago, on January 6, there was violence. The Capitol was attacked for the first time since the British burnt it in 1814. Not even the rebellious armies of the confederacy in the Civil War ever reached Congress. But then-president Donald Trump’s troops did. It was a desecration of democracy.

Inside the House chamber, men with guns drawn aimed at the doors of the House to stop the attackers. A woman was shot and killed just outside as she pushed to enter the chamber. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office was pillaged. Gallows to hang then-vice president Mike Pence were carted outside the Capitol. The mob occupied the Senate, trashed the desks of the senators and celebrated their driving the solons from the temple of democracy.

I worked in that building for over 10 years, and never imagined for a moment that armed Americans would attack the Congress to try to stop the House and Senate from conducting business required under the Constitution to ensure the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next.

The Capitol was retaken later that afternoon. The House and Senate fulfilled their constitutional responsibility. But three years on, the insurrection of that day is still under way.

The attacks on 9/11 were the most catastrophic on the American homeland since Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941. A special bipartisan commission was established to document what had occurred and how such a grievous assault was to be prevented. Its authoritative work demonstrated that leaders from across the political spectrum could come together to protect the country.

Donald Trump in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2001, before the attacks on the Capitol.Credit: AP

Not so with January 6. Republicans in the House and Senate spurned every effort to form a bipartisan committee to investigate and report not only on the events of that day but what occurred in the weeks after the 2020 election leading up to the riot at the Capitol.

It was an own goal. With Republican leaders boycotting the investigation, the January 6 Committee – with two Republicans who refused to be intimidated by Trump, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – was unimpeded in producing a most stunning and compelling report.