More than five years later, the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitolwas back in the headlines this week courtesy of a new film and a debacle in a U.S. Senate hearing.
On Saturday, Sept. 26, the movie "American Martyrs" was shown at the Cohen Pavilion at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach.
The film, according to its production company's website, features the story of the "prosecutions, and the consequences" faced by individuals, including Palm Beach resident Rudy Giuliani, behind the protests, violence and attempt to thwart the final certification of the 2020 presidential election.
The former New York mayor, who quarterbacked President Donald Trump's baseless claims of election fraud six years ago this fall, had faced
criminal charges in Georgia over that state's vote counting. The case was dismissed last year after the original prosecutor handling the proceedings was enveloped in scandal.
Trump pardoned Giuliani in November 2025, even though Giuliani was not named in any federal criminal complaints stemming from the effort to overthrow the election results.
Giuliani has been disbarred in New York over his false assertions about the electoral counts.
Then, on Sept. 28, a "gotcha" attempt at catching former special prosecutor Jack Smith by U.S. Sen. Eric Schmidt, a Missouri Republican, backfired in humiliating fashion.
Schmidt sought to bolster a conspiracy theory tying Smith, who led the prosecution of Trump in a Jan. 6 related indictment and the Mar-a-Lago documents case, to a disgraced prosecutor in Atlanta. But the ploy deflated on national television when it became clear Schmidt had apparently confused Atlanta Hawks and Iowa Hawkeyes basketball games.
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Jan. 6 Capitol riot spotlighted in film, U.S. Senate basketball flap
