Democratic lawmakers gathered on the Upper West Terrace of the Capitol, overlooking the National Mall, to honor officers who defended Congress during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack with a commemorative plaque.

But two things were missing — Republicans and the plaque itself.

The plaque is instead installed on a stone wall in a cellar-like entrance below the terrace, just inside the doorway. The memorial was screwed into the wall in the middle of the night earlier this month with little fanfare. Now, it’s getting its first of potentially many ceremonies.

“My Capitol Police detail rushed me out of the chamber when the danger occurred. We turned right, went through a door within 30 feet of some of these rioters. One of them saw me and was allegedly pointing and said, ‘There’s the big Jew. Let’s get him,’” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said at the Wednesday ceremony. “My Capitol Police team rushed me out of there to safety, and I’m forever grateful.”

Schumer was joined by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., along with Democratic members of the House select committee that investigated Jan. 6. They shared memories from that day — officers being pepper sprayed and beaten, staff members barricading themselves in offices — as well as criticisms of President Donald Trump. 

“You saw people carrying Confederate flags under the dome that Lincoln built … people defecating … one of them with a shirt saying ‘6 million were not enough’ on this terrible sweatshirt [about] the Holocaust,” Pelosi said. “And the president pardoned them.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., former chairman of the Jan. 6 committee, described how officers were stabbed with fence stakes and flagpoles, crushed in doorways and tased. “Others suffered concussions and traumatic brain injuries.”

The lawmakers called out two people in the audience: Aquilino Gonell, former sergeant of the Capitol Police, and Erin Smith, the wife of late D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith. Smith died by suicide days after the attack.

“Honoring those who protected us on Jan. 6 is not an exercise in partisanship,” Thompson said. “It’s an obligation to recognize those who have sacrificed for this country and all those who will in the future.”

The plaque began as a bipartisan effort as part of a 2022 law, but its installation was delayed for years. 

Speaker Mike Johnson’s office has blamed the delay in hanging the plaque on logistical and technical challenges in how the 2022 law that authorized it was written. While the law says it should include “the names of all of the officers” who responded on Jan. 6, the finished version lists law enforcement agencies instead.

Critics dismissed that reasoning, saying the finished plaque could include a digital supplement to display individual names — which the temporary location now has in the form of a QR code hanging next to it. The delay had more to do with whitewashing the violence committed by Trump supporters that day, Democrats have argued.

A resolution adopted in January from Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., aimed to speed things up, directing the Architect of the Capitol to display the plaque in a “publicly accessible location in the Senate wing” until it can be “placed at a permanent location on the western front.”

But its temporary placement has also drawn controversy. Harry Dunn, a former Capitol Police officer who filed a lawsuit over the delay last June alongside Daniel Hodges, a current D.C. police officer, is still fighting for the plaque to be hung on the west front of the Capitol.  

Dunn, who recently announced his second bid for Congress, was not at the ceremony. Neither was Tillis, who said Wednesday he’s planning “to do something separately with Capitol Police” in the future.

Lawmakers at the ceremony stressed that the plaque is in a temporary location. After remarks on the terrace, a handful of Democrats walked down a set of stairs, then another, and another. They walked into a small entryway, past a sign that says “Authorized Personnel Only” and huddled around the plaque in the hallway. Photographers and reporters squished in beside them.

When asked where plans stand for moving it to a more public place, Pelosi said it will happen “when Democrats win the House.”

“There continues to be an insidious effort to paper over the truth of what occurred, to rewrite the history of that day, to undermine elections and the rule of law,” said Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. “We must never allow the truth of what happened five years ago to be forgotten.” 

Savannah Behrmann contributed to this report.