By Steve Holland and Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden will award the Presidential Citizens Medal to 12 people on Friday during a ceremony at the White House to mark two years since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, a White House official said.
The award, one of the country's highest civilian honors, will be given to law enforcement officers, election workers and state and local officials, the official said.
Biden will also deliver remarks on Friday on the second anniversary of the U.S. Capitol attacks, in which supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the building in a failed bid to block Congress from certifying the 2020 election outcome.
The attacks followed weeks of false claims by Trump that he had won the 2020 elections.
News of the award recipients comes as a group of far-right Republicans in the House of Representatives, many who supported Trump's false election claims, block their party's attempts to elect a speaker, angering fellow Republicans. The White House plans to highlight distinctions between what Biden calls "extremists" in the opposition party and other Republicans in the months ahead.
Honorees include former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who resisted pressure to overturn the 2020 election results in their states, Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, who diverted rioters from the Senate floor while members were evacuating, Georgia election worker...
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