Frank Thorp V — After the Riot
NBC News Capitol Hill producer Frank Thorp V reconstructs the January 6 insurrection from inside the Capitol, drawing on years of firsthand reporting.
Why we picked this
Thorp was in the building. This isn't a secondhand account reconstructed from documents — it's a firsthand report from someone who witnessed the day and spent years understanding what it meant.
Frank Thorp V was inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, as an NBC News producer covering the certification of the 2020 election results. After the Riot is the account he spent years building: a reconstruction of that day and its aftermath that draws on his presence at the scene, his years of reporting on Congress, and the investigations that followed.
Thorp has covered Capitol Hill for NBC News for over a decade, developing the kind of institutional knowledge and source network that makes it possible to understand events that happen fast and get politicized immediately. The book is co-sponsored by the White House News Photographers Association, a detail that underscores the journalistic community’s stake in this particular piece of American history.
The conversation with moderator Pete Williams — a veteran NBC Justice correspondent — is likely to probe the mechanics of the day itself and the longer story of democratic fragility it represents. This event takes place at Politics and Prose’s Union Market location.