Photo by Drew Angerer / AFPPhoto by SAUL LOEB / AFPPhoto by Joseph Prezioso / AFPPhoto by WIN MCNAMEE / AFPPhoto by WIN MCNAMEE / AFPPhoto by Drew Angerer / AFP
Photo by Drew Angerer / AFPPhoto by SAUL LOEB / AFPPhoto by SAUL LOEB / AFPPhoto by Drew Angerer / AFPPhoto by SAUL LOEB / AFPPhoto by ALEX EDELMAN / AFP
Congress affirms Biden’s presidential win following riot at U.S. Capitol
InternationalJan 07. 2021Damage inside the U.S. Capitol left by pro-Trump protesters on January 6, 2021 in Washington. MUST CREDIT: Photo for The Washington Post by Oliver Contreras
By The Washington Post · Rosalind S. Helderman, Karoun Demirjian, Seung Min Kim, Mike DeBonis
WASHINGTON – Members of Congress, shaken and angry following a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters, put a final stamp on President-elect Joe Biden’s victory early Thursday morning and brought an end to a historically turbulent post-election period.
Republicans had at one point planned to object to the electoral college votes in a series of states won by Biden, but after the storming of the Capitol, several GOP senators changed course, disputing only Arizona and Pennsylvania. Both challenges failed.
Shortly after Congress affirmed Biden’s win, Trump pledged an “an orderly transition.” The statement, tweeted by White House social media director Dan Scavino as Trump remained locked out of his own Twitter account, stops short of conceding or congratulating Biden.
“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th,” Trump said, noting that Congress’s action “represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history.”
In the final moments of the joint session, Senate Chaplain Barry Black said a prayer lamenting “the desecration of the United States Capitol building, the shedding of innocent blood, the loss of life and the quagmire of dysfunction that threaten our democracy,” and Vice President Mike Pence gaveled the meeting to a close, as the Democrats present gave only a half-hearted show of applause.
The lawmakers convened Wednesday evening, after hours of delay, in a show of defiance. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had consulted with fellow congressional leaders, the Pentagon, the Justice Department and Pence before concluding that Congress should move ahead with the ceremony interrupted earlier in the day by rioters provoked to action by Trump at a morning rally.
“Today, a shameful assault was made on our democracy. It was anointed at the highest level of government. It cannot, however, deter us from our responsibility to validate the election of Joe Biden,” wrote Pelosi, D-Calif.
As lawmakers returned to work following the riot, the tone of the debate turned more somber and impassioned than before the interruption, with a number of Republicans who had planned to slow the proceedings with objections announcing they would stand aside.
“To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins. This is still the people’s house,” Pence said as he formally reopened the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the rioters had tried to disrupt democracy. “They failed,” he said.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, earned sustained applause from his colleagues for a thundering speech in which he said elected leaders should show respect for voters by telling them the truth, not fueling groundless doubts about the election.
“We gather due to a selfish man’s injured pride and the outrage of supporters who he has deliberately misinformed for the past two months and stirred to action this very morning,” Romney said. “What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the president of the United States.”
At one point early Thursday morning, the raw emotions nearly sparked a physical confrontation after Rep. Conor Lamb, R-La., accused Republicans of peddling falsehoods about election fraud.
“That that attack today, it didn’t materialize out of nowhere,” Lamb said. “It was inspired by lies – the same lies that you’re hearing in this room tonight.”
That sparked an exchange of words between Republicans and Democrats sitting behind Lamb that nearly led to blows before aides intervened.
Both chambers picked up Wednesday night where they had left off before the evacuation, considering a challenge to Biden’s 11 electoral votes in Arizona. The Senate rejected the challenge by 93 to 6 and the House by 303 to 121.
House members also objected when Pence read the tallies from Georgia, Michigan and Nevada, but those challenges died when no senators joined them.
After midnight, however, a challenge to Pennsylvania’s count, joined by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., prompted the two chambers to consider that state’s electoral vote. The Senate did not even debate before voting 92 to 7 to reject the challenge, while the House debated the full two hours ahead of a 282 to 138 vote of rejection.
Lawmakers then moved to reconvene the joint session and complete the counting of the remaining states, setting up a final confirmation of Biden’s victory at 3:45 a.m. – nearly 21 hours after the proceedings began.
Earlier in the day, the ceremonial reading of the electoral votes had just begun when pro-Trump rioters rushed the building at around 2 p.m., forcing the evacuation of both chambers of Congress. For hours, rioters rampaged through the Capitol complex. One woman was fatally shot in the building.
Only after the D.C. National Guard had been activated and political leaders in both parties condemned the rioting and appealed for calm did authorities declare the Capitol was secure.
The day had always been expected to be a historic test of the democratic system, with dozens of Republicans attempting for the first time to use Congress’s previously ceremonial role to try to overturn the results of a popular vote. The process was already underway when Jon Ossoff was declared the winner of one of two Senate runoffs in Georgia, handing control of the upper chamber to the Democrats for the next two years.
Still, the outcome of the congressional proceedings had been clear from the start, particularly after Pence announced he would reject pleas from the president to use his role as the session’s presiding officer to hand a win to Trump.
McConnell, who also had said little publicly about the process before Wednesday, likewise delivered a stirring opening floor speech imploring his colleagues not to damage democracy by objecting to the votes.
“Voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken – they’ve all spoken. If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever,” he said.
The tense day turned to chaos when pro-Trump rioters, stirred up at a rally where the president called for them to march on the Capitol, stormed the building and caused the proceedings to be halted for hours.
The violence shocked leaders in both parties. While lawmakers huddled in an undisclosed location during the siege, Republican leaders pressed their members to abandon their plans to challenge the electoral vote. Several senators said they would no longer object, notably Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., who had embraced the challenge as part of the hard-fought Senate election she lost Tuesday. “The events that have transpired today have forced me to reconsider,” she said.
Democrats and some outside groups began calling Wednesday for Trump to be either quickly impeached by Congress or removed from office via the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which guides the handling of an incapacitated president, in an effort to lessen his ability to incite more violence.
Several hours after his supporters had broken into the Capitol, Trump tweeted and released a video calling on them to respect law enforcement. But he also repeated lies about the election being stolen from him.
Late in the day, he tweeted that “these are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots.” The tweet was quickly removed by Twitter, which also for the first time announced that Trump’s account would be locked until he deleted the tweet and then for 12 hours. Facebook and Instagram quickly said they also would lock Trump out of their platforms for 24 hours.
The congressional process was supposed to be a mere procedural checkpoint on the way to Biden’s oath-taking later this month. Biden won the popular vote on Nov. 3 and, last month, the electoral college met in each state capital, as stipulated in the U.S. Constitution. Biden won 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232.
All that was left before the inauguration later this month was for a joint session of Congress to gather Wednesday and read those votes aloud.
According to an 1887 law that governs the process, any member of the House of Representatives, joined by a senator, can object to an individual state’s electoral tally, prompting a two-hour debate, followed by a vote in each chamber. A majority of both the House and Senate would have had to back a challenge for any to prevail, and Trump’s supporters did not have the votes.
Dozens of Republicans in the House, joined by 13 GOP Senators, had said they intended to object to slates of electors from several swing states that had backed Biden. They cited as their reason baseless allegations of fraud fanned by Trump, and the resulting belief among many Republicans that the election was compromised.
For days leading up to Wednesday, Trump had also pressed Pence, whom the Constitution requires to preside over the ceremony, to refuse to recognize electoral college slates from swing states that backed Biden.
Shortly before he took the gavel, however, Pence released a three-page letter he had written to members of Congress, rejecting Trump’s pleas.
“It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” he wrote.
A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, said Pence’s decision caused Trump to rage all afternoon even as the crowds were breaking into the Capitol, telling aides that Pence had betrayed him. Pence said he would merely preside over the reading of tallies that had been forwarded by the states. And then he opened the session, beginning alphabetically with the reading of votes from Alabama and Alaska, both of which backed Trump.
When Biden’s votes from Arizona were read aloud, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., joined Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to object.
At that point, the House and Senate retreated to their respective chambers to debate the challenge, with Pence presiding over the Senate and Pelosi overseeing the House.
For nearly 30 minutes, the process ran largely as expected. McConnell pleaded for Republicans not to heed Trump’s call to object to the results.
“If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral,” he said, calling the vote the most important in his 36 years in the Senate.
Cruz insisted he was seeking only a 10-day audit of the results and not necessarily to overturn the election.
His remarks ignored that more than 90 state and federal judges, including jurists appointed by both Democrats and Republicans, have considered and rejected claims of fraud or other irregularities since the election.
But before debate in either chamber could get truly rolling, protesters – who had been attending a rally where Trump spoke and urged them to march on the Capitol – broke into the building and stormed the chambers, causing both the House and Senate to recess. As chaos erupted and Pence and Pelosi were hustled to secure locations, Republican Sens. Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Mike Rounds of South Dakota helped the parliamentarians grab the election certificates and take them to the secure location.
Constitutional experts said nothing in the law prevented Congress from picking up the ceremony where it left off. Even if for some reason it was unable to complete that process by Jan. 20, the Constitution is clear: The president’s term ends at noon that day.
“The idea that individuals were allowed to derail one of our most solemn sacred constitutional processes is horrifying. But this is only going to delay for a bit the completion of the process,” said Rick Pildes, a constitutional law professor at New York University School of Law.
If for some reason Congress were not able to confirm the electoral college vote between now and Inauguration Day, Pelosi would become acting president.
“What we absolutely know is that at noon on Jan. 20, the current term of both President Trump and Vice President Pence end,” said Edward Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University.
Trump supporters storm U.S. Capitol, with one woman killed, three more dead and tear gas fired
InternationalJan 07. 2021Supporters of President Donald Trump gather Wednesday near the White House with a spillover crowd extending to the Washington Monument. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Matt McClain
By The Washington Post · Rebecca Tan, Peter Jamison, Meagan Flynn, John Woodrow Cox
WASHINGTON – As President Donald Trump told a sprawling crowd outside the White House that they should never accept defeat, hundreds of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in what amounted to an attempted coup that they hoped would overturn the election he lost. In the chaos, law enforcement officials said, a California woman was shot and killed by Capitol Police and three people died of medical emergencies.
The violent scene – much of it incited by the president’s incendiary language – was like no other in modern American history, bringing to a sudden halt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
With poles bearing blue Trump flags, a mob that would eventually grow into the thousands bashed through Capitol doors and windows, forcing their way past police officers unprepared for the onslaught. Lawmakers were evacuated shortly before an armed standoff at the House chamber’s entrance. The woman who was shot, 35-year-old Ashli Babbitt of San Diego, was rushed to an ambulance, police said, and later died. Canisters of tear gas were fired across the Rotunda’s white marble floor, and on the steps outside the building, rioters flew Confederate flags.
“USA! USA!” chanted the would-be saboteurs of a 244-year-old democracy.
The Senate stopped its proceedings, and the House doors were closed. In a notification, U.S. Capitol Police said no one would be allowed to come or go from the building as they struggled to regain control. “Stay away from exterior windows, doors. If outside, seek cover,” police warned.
All 1,100 members of the D.C. National Guard were activated, and Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, imposed a citywide curfew. From 6 p.m. Wednesday to 6 a.m. Thursday, Bowser said, no one other than essential personnel would be allowed outdoors in the city.
The mob had arrived hours earlier, charging past the metal barricades on the property’s outer edge. Hundreds, then thousands followed them. Some scaled the Capitol’s walls to reach entrances; others climbed over one another.
On the building’s east side, police initially pushed the pro-Trump demonstrators back but soon gave up and fell back to the foot of the main steps. Within a half-hour, fights broke out again, and police retreated to the top of the stairs as screaming Trump supporters surged closer. After the police perimeters were breached, the elated crowd began to sing the national anthem.
For an hour, they banged on the doors, chanting, “Let us in! Let us in!” Police inside fired pepper balls and smoke bombs into the crowd but failed to turn them away. After each volley, the rioters, who were mostly White men, would cluster around the doors again, yelling, arguing, pledging revolution.
Sometime after 2:10 p.m., a man used a clear plastic riot shield to break through the windows on a first floor to the south side of the building, then hopped in with a few others. Once inside, police suspect, rioters opened doors to let in more of their compatriots.
A Capitol Police officer shouted from a higher stairway at the intruders, yelling at them to stop, but when they didn’t, the officer fired at a man coming at him, two law enforcement officials said. Amid shouts and people rushing to get away from the sound of gunfire, protesters saw a woman in their group collapse. Police believe she was unarmed, a law enforcement official said, but the officer who shot her did not know that. Capitol Police had already been warned by D.C. police that many protesters were secretly carrying weapons.
“They shot a girl!” someone yelled as a group of Trump supporters ran out of the southeast entrance.
A team of paramedics with a gurney soon arrived and a Capitol Police officer stepped aside to let them pass. “White female, shot in the shoulder,” the officer said as they hurried past. They emerged minutes later.
On the gurney was a woman in jeans, gazing vacantly to one side, her torso and face covered in blood. As the gurney was loaded into the back of the ambulance, pro-Trump protesters swarmed around it, screaming, “Murderers!”
Capitol Police officers with long guns pushed the rioters back, and the ambulance drove off.
Babbitt was shot while trying to climb through a broken window in an area behind the House chamber. Her ex-husband confirmed her death Wednesday night.
Three other people died of medical emergencies, D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee said in a Wednesday-night news conference.
The people’s names, and the circumstances of their deaths, were not released during the news conference with Contee and Bowser.
Also at the news conference, Bowser declared a public emergency in the city until Jan. 21, to improve security “through the inauguration.” The declaration gives her more authority to draw on resources to maintain city security. Inauguration Day is scheduled for Jan. 20.
Bowser called the attack on the Capitol an “affront on our American democracy” and implored city residents to abide by the city’s curfew.
“I urge anyone who is not in place in your home or your hotel – and if you mean to cause trouble in the streets of D.C. you will be arrested,” she said.
Bowser blamed the president for the rioting.
“We saw an unprecedented attack on our American Democracy incited by the United States president,” Bowser said. “He must be held accountable. His constant and divisive rhetoric led to the abhorrent actions we saw today.”
Contee said 14 D.C. officers were injured. One was pulled into a crowd, assaulted and hospitalized. Another received “significant facial injuries” after being hit by a projectile. Others are not as serious.
Contee said police had made at least 52 arrests: four for carrying pistols without licenses, one arrest for possession of a prohibited weapon and 47 arrests for curfew violations and unlawful entry. Twenty-six of the 52 arrests were made on Capitol grounds, Contee said.
The chief also confirmed that police recovered two pipe bombs at the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee offices. A cooler that contained molotov cocktails was also found on Capitol grounds, the chief said. Bowser said officials will review video and issue alerts for people who breached the Capitol, adding that they “need to be held accountable for the carnage.”
Contee also said in the news conference that D.C. police had participated in “several planning meetings with Capitol Police” and other agencies to plan for protests on Wednesday. He said Capitol Police called for help at 1 p.m. because of “significant activity” outside the Capitol and that “we immediately deployed platoons to assist the Capitol Police.”
During the siege in the Capitol, where lawmakers had donned gas masks kept under their chairs, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., could only think of his family as he and other lawmakers hid from the mob. Reeling from the loss of his 25-year-old son last week, Raskin had taken one of his daughters and his son-in-law to the Capitol to watch the debates unfold over certification of Biden’s election, he said, “because we wanted to be together.” Raskin was helping lead Democrats’ arguments against Republican objectors.
“I thought I could show them the peaceful transfer of power in the United States of America,” Raskin told C-SPAN earlier. “What was really going through my mind was their safety because they were not with me in the chamber, and I just wanted us all to get back together.”
Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., said members were told that chemical irritants had been released in Statuary Hall and, for a moment, braced for the possibility that they would be exposed to tear gas. Capitol Police barricaded the doors with tables and bookshelves.
Spanberger, a former CIA case officer, said that it was a crisis she would only expect to see unfold in fragile, faraway places.
“This is what we see in failing countries,” she said. “This is what leads to a death of democracy.”
The shooting and the breach triggered an instant call for help across Washington to other law enforcement agencies. At the U.S. Secret Service, headquarters sent out an emergency alert to all gun-carrying Secret Service personnel to report to headquarters in preparation to help secure the Capitol.
Meanwhile, dozens of other rioters streamed into the building, where they smashed windows and vandalized offices.
“MURDER THE MEDIA,” read a message written on one door.
“WE WILL NOT BACK DOWN,” read another left in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who also refused to back down, later directing her colleagues to return and finish validating Biden’s victory.
Rep. Karen Bass, a Democrat from California, shared a photo on Twitter of a long-haired man in a Trump hat carrying a rostrum adorned with the gold-colored seal of the speaker.
“Arrest this man,” she demanded.
At 3:30 p.m., more law enforcement in riot gear arrived at the Capitol.
“Traitors,” Trump supporters shouted. “What’s your oath?”
Biden condemned what he called an “unprecedented assault” on American democracy, “unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times.”
“This is not dissent. It’s disorder. It’s chaos,” he said. “It borders on sedition, and it must end now.”
For hours, Trump made little effort to quell the violence he had helped instigate, finally sharing a video at 4:17 p.m. in which he told people to “go home” – while continuing to promote the falsehood that he had won the election.
“We love you,” he told them. “You’re very special.”
The Capitol has been the target of violence before. In 1954, Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from a House gallery, injuring five lawmakers on the floor below. In 1971, a bomb planted by a radical left-wing group exploded, though no one was harmed. In 1998, a gunman opened fire, killing two Capitol Police officers. But not since the British set fire to the Capitol in 1814 has a mob overrun the ultimate symbol of American freedom.
At about 8:30 p.m., just more than an hour after hundreds of law enforcement officers had at last finished clearing the mob and removing Trump flags left inside the building, heavily armed FBI agents and police officers in riot gear escorted lawmakers back to work.
D.C. police had arrested 13 people by early evening, they said, including three in possession of firearms. About 6 p.m., a man was stabbed at 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, near Freedom Plaza, though it was unclear whether the attack was related to the demonstrations.
At the Capitol, those who had made it inside took on a celebrity status when they came back out. A woman who said she had footage on her phone of Capitol Police pointing guns at rioters was circled by dozens who wanted to see it. People traded what information they had about the woman who was shot inside. Some called her a “martyr.”
After she was taken away, the mood soured, though many remained joyous. “We’re making history,” one woman said as she strolled down Independence Avenue with friends.
Beneath streaming flags, including some that read “F— Biden” and that depicted Trump as the movie character Rambo, people loudly exhorted Jesus and chanted “USA!”
Many called friends and family and took videos.
“We weren’t violent before, but we are now,” a middle-aged White man said, talking into his cellphone. “There’s no going back.”
Congress closes in on affirming Biden win following riot at U.S. Capitol
InternationalJan 07. 2021Capitol police direct members and staffers out of the House as a mob of rioters storms the Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Bill O’Leary
By The Washington Post · Rosalind S. Helderman, Karoun Demirjian, Seung Min Kim, Josh Dawsey
WASHINGTON – Members of Congress, shaken and angry following a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters, moved closer late Wednesday to putting a final stamp on President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and bringing an end to a historically turbulent post-election period.
In a show of defiance, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had consulted with House leaders, the Pentagon, the Justice Department and Vice President Mike Pence before concluding that Congress should move ahead with the ceremony interrupted earlier in the day by rioters provoked to action by Trump at a morning rally.
“Today, a shameful assault was made on our democracy. It was anointed at the highest level of government. It cannot, however, deter us from our responsibility to validate the election of Joe Biden,” wrote Pelosi, D-Calif.
As lawmakers returned to work following the riot, the tone of the debate turned more somber and impassioned than before the interruption, with a number of Republicans who had planned to slow the proceedings with objections announcing they would stand aside.
“To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins. This is still the people’s house,” Pence said as he formally reopened the Senate.
Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the rioters had tried to disrupt democracy. “They failed,” he said.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, earned sustained applause from his colleagues for a thundering speech in which he said elected leaders should show respect for voters by telling them the truth, not fueling groundless doubts about the election.
“We gather due to a selfish man’s injured pride and the outrage of supporters who he has deliberately misinformed for the past two months and stirred to action this very morning,” Romney said. “What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the president of the United States.”
Both chambers picked up where they had left off before the evacuation, considering a challenge to Biden’s 11 electoral votes in Arizona. The Senate rejected the challenge by 92 to 7 and the House by 303 to 121.
House members also objected when Pence read the tallies from Georgia, Michigan and Nevada, but those challenges died when no senators joined them.
After midnight, however, a challenge to Pennsylvania’s count, joined by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., prompted the two chambers to begin a debate on that state’s electoral vote. The challenge, like Arizona’s, was expected to fail.
Lawmakers planned to work through the night for as long as it took to dispose of the dissents.
Earlier in the day, the ceremonial reading of the electoral votes had just begun when pro-Trump rioters rushed the building at around 2 p.m., forcing the evacuation of both chambers of Congress. For hours, rioters rampaged through the Capitol complex. One woman was fatally shot in the building.
Only after the District of Columbia National Guard had been activated and political leaders in both parties condemned the rioting and appealed for calm did authorities declare the Capitol was secure.
The day had always been expected to be a historic test of the democratic system, with dozens of Republicans attempting for the first time to use Congress’s previously ceremonial role to try to overturn the results of a popular vote. The process was already underway when Jon Ossoff was declared the winner of one of two Senate runoffs in Georgia, handing control of the upper chamber to the Democrats for the next two years.
Still, the outcome of the congressional proceedings had been clear from the start, particularly after Pence announced he would reject pleas from the president to use his role as the session’s presiding officer to hand a win to Trump.
McConnell, who also had said little publicly about the process before Wednesday, likewise delivered a stirring opening floor speech imploring his colleagues not to damage democracy by objecting to the votes.
“Voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken – they’ve all spoken. If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever,” he said.
The tense day turned to chaos when pro-Trump rioters, stirred up at a rally where the president called for them to march on the Capitol, stormed the building and caused the proceedings to be halted for hours.
The violence shocked leaders in both parties. While lawmakers huddled in an undisclosed location during the siege, Republican leaders pressed their members to abandon their plans to challenge the electoral vote. Several senators said they would no longer object, notably Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., who had embraced the challenge as part of the hard-fought Senate election she lost Tuesday. “The events that have transpired today have forced me to reconsider,” she said.
Democrats and some outside groups began calling Wednesday for Trump to be either quickly impeached by Congress or removed from office via the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which guides the handling of an incapacitated president, in an effort to lessen his ability to incite more violence.
Several hours after his supporters had broken into the Capitol, Trump tweeted and released a video calling on them to respect law enforcement. But he also repeated lies about the election being stolen from him.
Late in the day, he tweeted that “these are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots.” The tweet was quickly removed by Twitter, which also for the first time announced that Trump’s account would be locked until he deleted the tweet and then for 12 hours. Facebook and Instagram quickly said they also would lock Trump out of their platforms for 24 hours.
The congressional process was supposed to be a mere procedural checkpoint on the way to Biden’s oath-taking later this month. Biden won the popular vote on Nov. 3 and, last month, the electoral college met in each state capital, as stipulated in the U.S. Constitution. Biden won 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232.
All that was left before the inauguration later this month was for a joint session of Congress to gather Wednesday and read those votes aloud.
According to an 1887 law that governs the process, any member of the House of Representatives, joined by a senator, can object to an individual state’s electoral tally, prompting a two-hour debate, followed by a vote in each chamber. A majority of both the House and Senate would have had to back a challenge for any to prevail, and Trump’s supporters did not have the votes.
Dozens of Republicans in the House, joined by 13 GOP Senators, had said they intended to object to slates of electors from several swing states that had backed Biden. They cited as their reason baseless allegations of fraud fanned by Trump, and the resulting belief among many Republicans that the election was compromised.
For days leading up to Wednesday, Trump had also pressed Pence, whom the Constitution requires to preside over the ceremony, to refuse to recognize electoral college slates from swing states that backed Biden.
Shortly before he took the gavel, however, Pence released a three-page letter he had written to members of Congress, rejecting Trump’s pleas.
“It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” he wrote.
A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, said Pence’s decision caused Trump to rage all afternoon even as the crowds were breaking into the Capitol, telling aides that Pence had betrayed him. Pence said he would merely preside over the reading of tallies that had been forwarded by the states. And then he opened the session, beginning alphabetically with the reading of votes from Alabama and Alaska, both of which backed Trump.
When Biden’s votes from Arizona were read aloud, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., joined Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to object.
At that point, the House and Senate retreated to their respective chambers to debate the challenge, with Pence presiding over the Senate and Pelosi overseeing the House.
For nearly 30 minutes, the process ran largely as expected. McConnell pleaded for Republicans not to heed Trump’s call to object to the results.
“If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral,” he said, calling the vote the most important in his 36 years in the Senate.
Cruz insisted he was seeking only a 10-day audit of the results and not necessarily to overturn the election.
His remarks ignored that more than 90 state and federal judges, including jurists appointed by both Democrats and Republicans, have considered and rejected claims of fraud or other irregularities since the election.
But before debate in either chamber could get truly rolling, protesters – who had been attending a rally where Trump spoke and urged them to march on the Capitol – broke into the building and stormed the chambers, causing both the House and Senate to recess. As chaos erupted and Pence and Pelosi were hustled to secure locations, Republican Sens. Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Mike Rounds of South Dakota helped the parliamentarians grab the election certificates and take them to the secure location.
Constitutional experts said nothing in the law prevented Congress from picking up the ceremony where it left off. Even if for some reason it was unable to complete that process by Jan. 20, the Constitution is clear: The president’s term ends at noon that day.
“The idea that individuals were allowed to derail one of our most solemn sacred constitutional processes is horrifying. But this is only going to delay for a bit the completion of the process,” said Rick Pildes, a constitutional law professor at New York University School of Law.
If for some reason Congress were not able to confirm the electoral college vote between now and Inauguration Day, Pelosi would become acting president.
“What we absolutely know is that at noon on Jan. 20, the current term of both President Trump and Vice President Pence end,” said Edward Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University.
Trump loyalists continue to challenge Biden’s win, but some Republicans concede after Capitol riot
InternationalJan 07. 2021Supporters of President Donald Trump gather near the Washington Monument on Wednesday. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Matt McClain
By The Washington Post · Karoun Demirjian, Seung Min Kim, Mike DeBonis · NATIONAL, POLITICS, CONGRESS, WHITEHOUSE
WASHINGTON – Several Senate Republicans who had vowed to protest President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college win reversed their objections after a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters violently stormed the Capitol – even as other rogue senators signaled that they would continue to contest the election results after Wednesday’s deadly siege.
Sens. Steve Daines, R-Mont., James Lankford, R-Okla., and Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., who endorsed objections to the tallying of electors in key disputed states, said they would stand down and support the affirmation of the election results. Loeffler, who lost her bid to retain her appointed seat Tuesday night, said she could no longer “in good conscience” do so after the hours-long melee that sent senators rushing to safety.
“We now need the entire Congress to come together and vote to certify the election results. We must stand together as Americans,” Daines and Lankford said in a joint statement. “We must defend our Constitution and the rule of law.”
Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., explained that the siege “did change things drastically” and that he wanted to “get this ugly day behind us.” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., a close ally of the president, also told reporters that “in light of events, there’s a bit of a different attitude” about continuing the objection to the election results. Both had supported efforts to dispute the results.
But the objectors may not launch additional challenges past the one pending against Arizona’s slate of electors, according to aides and lawmakers familiar with their plans. How the objections ultimately unfold may come down to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who was the first senator to announce that he would protest the electoral college vote last month, and who continued to raise concerns about the outcome in Pennsylvania.
While he did not explicitly say one way or the other whether he still planned to lodge an objection to Pennsylvania’s electors, in brief floor remarks Wednesday night, Hawley noted that he should speak about the election process in that state now, “in lieu of speaking about it later.”
“I actually think it’s very vital what we do, the opportunity to be heard, to register objections is very vital,” Hawley said, defending his stance.
Republican leaders and lawmakers spent Wednesday afternoon trying to press Trump loyalists such as Hawley to abandon their objections to Biden’s win, as they huddled in an undisclosed location, waiting for law enforcement officials to clear bands of pro-Trump rioters from the Capitol, according to people familiar with the effort.
After law enforcement officials cleared the Capitol, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told reporters that objectors would “condense” their remaining objections into a single complaint, extending the debate by another 30 or 40 minutes before relenting.
“I don’t think there’s going to be another objection,” Paul said. “I think it’s over.”
If Paul’s predictions are correct, it would be a marked surrender from Trump’s allies, who had promised to carry out an all-night, state-by-state marathon of objections to certifying the electoral votes of several swing states that Trump lost in November.
But aides to Hawley and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who also spoke in defense of the objections Wednesday, would not answer queries about whether they planned to continue their objections.
When the House and Senate chambers went into lockdown, each was midway through debating Arizona’s election results, to which Cruz and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., had objected. Lawmakers returned to the Capitol on Wednesday night.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told members to return Wednesday night to resume proceedings as a projection of strength after rioters drove lawmakers to leave the Capitol, according to two senior Republicans familiar with the message the leader had been sending.
Houe Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., offered a similar sentiment to House members.
“I have faced violent hatred before. I was not deterred then, and I will not be deterred now,” he tweeted. “Tonight, Congress will continue the business of certifying the electoral college votes.”
The protest of the electoral college results, which began as an organized exercise in the Capitol Wednesday afternoon, quickly devolved into chaos as a pro-Trump mob stormed barricades, pushing past armed Capitol police and into the congressional office buildings and the Capitol itself, sending the House and the Senate into lockdown. Lawmakers were ushered away soon after, and protesters occupied the chambers.
As they were pushed out of the Capitol, several Republicans publicly called on Trump to intervene with his supporters and urge them to stand down.
“Call it off, Mr. President. We need you to call this off,” Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Pa., said in a CNN interview, appealing to Trump to tweet to his supporters that “it’s over. Please go home.”
Even House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who committed to support the electoral college protest earlier Wednesday, called on Trump to “calm” his supporters and bring their “un-American” protest to an end.
Earlier on Wednesday, McConnell accused Republicans backing the electoral college objections of hypocrisy, shaming them for questioning Biden’s win after spending four years accusing Democrats of never having accepted Trump’s presidency, and urging them not to “escalate what we repudiate.”
“We cannot simply declare ourselves a national board of elections on steroids . . . it would damage our republic forever,” McConnell said. “We cannot keep drifting apart into two separate tribes with a separate set of facts and separate reality, with nothing in common except our hostility toward each other.”
InternationalJan 07. 2021Capitol police direct members and staffers out of the House as a mob of rioters storms the Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Bill O’Leary
By The Washington Post · Rosalind S. Helderman, Karoun Demirjian, Seung Min Kim, Josh Dawsey · NATIONAL, POLITICS, COURTSLAW, CONGRESS
WASHINGTON – Congress returned to work late Wednesday to complete the process of tallying the electoral college votes and confirming President-elect Joe Biden’s win, hours after the ceremony was halted by an unprecedented breach of the Capitol by storming supporters of President Donald Trump.
In a show of defiance and resolve, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had consulted with House leaders, the Pentagon, the Justice Department and Vice President Mike Pence before concluding that Congress should move ahead with the ceremony interrupted earlier in the day by rioters provoked to action by Trump at a morning rally.
“Today, a shameful assault was made on our democracy. It was anointed at the highest level of government. It cannot, however, deter us from our responsibility to validate the election of Joe Biden,” wrote Pelosi , D-Calif.
As he reopened the Senate chamber, Pence decried “the dark day in the history of the United States Capitol.”
“To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins. This is still the people’s house,” Pence said.
“They tried to disrupt our democracy. They failed,” Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., added.
The ceremonial reading of the electoral votes had only just begun when pro-Trump rioters rushed the building, forcing the evacuation of both chambers of Congress. For hours, rioters rampaged through the Capitol complex. One woman was fatally shot in the building.
Only after the D.C. National Guard had been activated and political leaders in both parties condemned the rioting and appealed for calm did authorities declare the Capitol was secure.
The day had always been expected to be a historic test of the democratic system, with dozens of Republicans attempting for the first time to use Congress’s previously ceremonial role to try to overturn the results of a popular vote. The process was already underway when Jon Ossoff was declared the winner of one of two Senate runoffs in Georgia on Tuesday, handing control of the upper chamber to the Democrats.
Still, the outcome of the congressional proceedings had been clear from the start, particularly after Pence announced he would reject pleas from the president to use his role as the session’s presiding officer to hand a win to Trump.
McConnell, who also had said little publicly about the process before Wednesday, likewise delivered a stirring opening floor speech imploring his colleagues not to damage democracy by objecting to the votes.
“Voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken – they’ve all spoken. If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever,” he said.
The tense day turned to horror when pro-Trump rioters, stirred up at a rally where the president called for them to march on the Capitol, stormed the building, causing the proceedings to be halted for hours and the chambers to be evacuated. A woman died after being shot during the melee.
The violence shocked leaders in both parties. While lawmakers huddled in an undisclosed location during the siege, Republican leaders pressed their members to abandon their plans to challenge the electoral vote. A least one Republican House member who had planned to object later said she had changed her mind and would vote to confirm Biden’s votes.
“I encourage Donald Trump to condemn and put an end to this madness,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.
Democrats and some outside groups began calling Wednesday for Trump to be either quickly impeached by Congress or removed from office via the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which guides the handling of an incapacitated president, in an effort to lessen his ability to incite more violence.
Several hours after his supporters had broken into the Capitol, Trump tweeted and released a video calling on them to respect law enforcement. But he also repeated lies about the election being stolen from him.
Late in the day, he tweeted that “these are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots.” The tweet was quickly removed by Twitter, which also for the first time announced Trump’s account would be locked until he deleted the tweet and then for 12 hours.
The congressional process was supposed to be a mere ceremonial checkpoint on the way to Biden’s oath-taking later this month. Biden won the popular vote on Nov. 3 and, last month, the electoral college met in each state capital, as stipulated in the U.S. Constitution. Biden won 306 electoral votes, to Trump’s 232.
All that was left before the Inauguration later this month was for a joint session of Congress to gather Wednesday and read those votes aloud.
According to an 1887 law that governs the process, any member of the House of Representatives, joined by a senator, can object, prompting a two hour debate, followed by a vote of each chamber. A majority of both the House and Senate would have had to back a challenge for any to prevail, and Trump’s supporters did not have the votes.
Dozens of Republicans in the House, joined by 13 GOP Senators, had said they intended to object to slates of electors from several swing states that had backed Biden. They cited as their reason baseless allegations of fraud fanned by Trump, and the resulting belief among many Republicans that the election was compromised.
For days leading up to Wednesday, Trump had also pressed Pence, who the Constitution requires to preside over the ceremony, to refuse to recognize electoral college slates from swing states that backed Biden.
“All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN,” Trump tweeted overnight hours before the ceremony began. “Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!”
Shortly before he took the gavel, however, Pence released a three-page letter he had written to members of Congress, rejecting Trump’s pleas.
“It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” he wrote.
A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, said Pence’s decision caused Trump to rage all afternoon even as the crowds were breaking into the Capitol, telling aides that Pence had betrayed him.
Pence said he would merely preside over the reading of tallies that had been forwarded by the states. And then he opened the session, beginning alphabetically with the reading of votes from Alabama and Alaska, both of which backed Trump.
When Biden’s votes from Arizona were read aloud, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., joined Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to object. Dozens of Republicans rose and gave the two a hearty round of applause.
At that point, the House and Senate retreated to their respective chambers to debate the challenge, with Pence presiding over the Senate and Pelosi overseeing the House.
For nearly 30 minutes, the process ran largely as expected. McConnell – in the final days of leading the Senate chamber until Democrats take control as a result of their victories in the two Senate races in Georgia on Tuesday – gave an impassioned plea as to why Republicans should not heed Trump’s call to object to the results.
“I’ve served 36 years in the Senate – this will be the most important vote I’ve ever cast,” McConnell said, his voice breaking at times as he spoke.
“If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral,” he said.
Cruz insisted he was seeking only a 10-day audit of the results and not necessarily to overturn the election, urging that they agree to establish a “credible and fair tribunal” to consider the allegations of fraud that have been advanced.
His remarks ignored that more than 90 state and federal judges, including jurists appointed by both Democrats and Republicans, have considered and rejected claims of fraud or other irregularities since the election.
In the House, several GOP speakers opened by objecting to voting procedures adopted by states in response to the coronavirus pandemic. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) argued that “the constitutional process was not followed” in a number of states.
And he talked about how over a hundred House Republicans had joined a lawsuit filed by Texas last month, seeking to get the Supreme Court to throw out the results of four states. The court declined to hear the case. Scalise complained the court’s decision had been a “punt.”
But before debate in either chamber could get truly rolling, protesters – who had been attending a rally where Trump spoke and urged them to march on the Capitol – broke into the building and stormed the chambers, causing both the House and Senate to recess.
As chaos erupted and Pence and Pelosi were hustled to secure locations, Republican Sens. Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Mike Rounds of South Dakota helped the parliamentarians grab the election certificates and take them to the secure location.
Constitutional experts said nothing in the law prevented Congress from picking up the ceremony where it left off. Even if for some reason they were unable to complete that process by Jan. 20, the Constitution is clear: The president’s term ends at noon on that day.
“The idea that individuals were allowed to derail one of our most solemn sacred constitutional processes is horrifying. But this is only going to delay for a bit the completion of the process,” said Rick Pildes, a constitutional law professor at New York University School of Law. “If Congress needs one day, two days or 10 days, they have that time, plenty have time, to complete the process.”
According to the Constitution, the president and vice president’s terms will end on Jan. 20. If for some reason Congress were not able to confirm the electoral college vote between now and then, Pelosi would become “acting president.”
“What we absolutely know is that at noon on Jan. 20, the current term of both President Trump and Vice President Pence end,” said Edward Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University.
Lawmakers return to Capitol after mob riot that left woman dead
InternationalJan 07. 2021Supporters of President Trump stand outside the east side of the Capitol. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Marissa J. Lang
By The Washington Post · Rebecca Tan, Peter Jamison, Rachel Chason, Marissa J. Lang, John Woodrow Cox ·NATIONAL, POLITICS, COURTSLAW, CONGRESS, WHITEHOUSE
WASHINGTON – Lawmakers returned to the U.S. Capitol Wednesday night after hundreds of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building in what amounted to an attempted coup that they hoped would overturn the election he lost, egged on by the president who egged them on and said they should never accept defeat, .
Supporters of President Donald Trump gather Wednesday near the White House with a spillover crowd extending to the Washington Monument. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Matt McClain—
Photo by: The Washington Post — The Washington Post
The day’s chaotic, violent scene – all of it incited by the president’s incendiary language – was like none other in modern American history, bringing to a sudden halt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s free and fair electoral victory.
With poles bearing blue Trump flags, the mob bashed through Capitol doors and windows, forcing their way past police officers unprepared for the onslaught. Lawmakers were ushered away shortly before an armed standoff at the House doors. Canisters of tear gas were fired across the Rotunda’s white marble floor, and on the steps outside the building, rioters flew Confederate flags. At least one person, a woman, was shot and rushed to an ambulance outside the building. She later died.
“USA! USA!” chanted the would-be saboteurs of a 244-year-old democracy.
The Senate halted its proceedings, and the House doors were closed. In a notification, U.S. Capitol police said no entry or exit was permitted in the buildings as officers struggled to regain control. “Stay away from exterior windows, doors. If outside, seek cover,” police warned.
All 1,100 members of the D.C. National Guard were activated, and Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, imposed a citywide curfew. From 6 p.m. Wednesday to 6 a.m. Thursday, Bowser said no one other than essential personnel would be allowed outdoors in the city. The governors of Maryland and Virginia also activated state troopers and members of their Guards to help respond to the situation.
What appeared to be two realistic-looking homemade bombs were found near the Republican National Committee headquarters and the Democratic National Committee headquarters in downtown Washington, officials said, adding to the danger and disorder.
The suspected bomb outside the RNC was found next to a trash container, and was a metal pipe with metal end caps, with wires running from inside the pipe to a plastic kitchen timer, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing investigations.
FBI explosives experts responded to both devices, and they were “rendered safe by the FBI and our law enforcement partners,” the bureau said in a statement. “The investigation is ongoing.”
In a statement, the RNC called the suspicious package outside their building an “explosive device that was successfully detonated.”
At 6 p.m., police were pushing the mob away from the Capitol and authorities said the interior of the Capitol had been secured, fully cleared of rioters.
Police announced to those still outside the Capitol shortly after 6 p.m., “A curfew is now in effect. All individuals must leave the U.S. Capitol grounds or be subject to arrest.” Hundreds of people slowly walked toward the mall as police in riot gear marched forward.
Scattered catcalls and curses met the police advance. “We’ll be back, traitors,” a man yelled. Chants of “U-S-A” continued to break out as the rioters dispersed.
Protesters were far outnumbered by law enforcement, whom one man on a loudspeaker blamed for starting “the United States civil war.” “This is China,” said one man leaving the grounds, echoing shouts of “Tiananmen Square” that came when police cleared the grounds.
Congress returned to work late Wednesday to complete the process of tallying the electoral college votes and confirming Biden’s win.
In a show of defiance and resolve, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had consulted with House leaders, the Pentagon, the Justice Department and Vice President Mike Pence before concluding that Congress should move ahead with the ceremony interrupted earlier in the day by rioters provoked to action by Trump at a morning rally.
“Today, a shameful assault was made on our democracy. It was anointed at the highest level of government. It cannot, however, deter us from our responsibility to validate the election of Joe Biden,” wrote Pelosi, D-Calif.
The mob had arrived hours earlier, charging past the metal barricades on the property’s outer edge. Hundreds, then thousands, followed them. Some scaled the Capitol’s walls to reach the entrances; others climbed over one another.
On the building’s east side, police initially pushed the pro-Trump demonstrators back, but were soon overpowered and fell back to the foot of the main steps. Within a half-hour, fights broke out again, and police retreated to the top of the steps as screaming Trump supporters surged closer. After the police perimeters were breached, the elated crowd began to sing the national anthem.
For an hour, they banged on the doors, chanting, “Let us in! Let us in!” Police inside fired pepper balls and smoke bombs into the crowd but failed to turn them away. After each volley, the rioters, who were mostly White men, would cluster around the doors again, yelling, arguing, pledging revolution.
Dozens soon broke their way inside, where they smashed windows and vandalized offices.
“MURDER THE MEDIA,” read a message written on one door.
“WE WILL NOT BACK DOWN,” read another left in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.
Just before 3 p.m., Trump supporters began running out of the southeastern entrance.
“They shot a girl!” someone yelled.
Paramedics with a gurney soon arrived and a Capitol police officer stepped aside to let them pass. “White female, shot in the shoulder,” the officer said as they hurried past. They emerged minutes later.
On the gurney was a woman in jeans, gazing vacantly to one side, her torso and face covered in blood. As the gurney was loaded into the back of the ambulance, pro-Trump protesters swarmed around it, screaming, “Murderers!”
Capitol police officers with long guns pushed them back, and the ambulance drove off.
The woman’s name was not released.
Dustin Sternbeck, spokesman for the District of Columbia police, said Wednesday evening that the woman had died. He provided no further information as to the circumstances of the shooting.
At 3:30 p.m., more law enforcement in riot gear arrived at the Capitol.
“Traitors,” Trump supporters shouted. “What’s your oath?”
Biden condemned what he called an “unprecedented assault” on American democracy, “unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times.”
“This is not dissent. It’s disorder. It’s chaos,” he said. “It borders on sedition, and it must end now.”
For hours, the president made little effort to quell the violence he had instigated, sharing a video at 4:17 p.m. in which he told people to “go home” – while continuing to promote the lie that he had won the election.
“We love you,” he told them. “You’re very special.”
D.C. police said they arrested 13 people from Tuesday afternoon through 6 p.m. on Wednesday, including three who authorities said had firearms.
People who made it inside the Capitol took on a celebrity status when they came back out. A woman who said she had footage on her phone of Capitol police pointing guns at rioters was circled by dozens who wanted to see it. People traded what information they had about the woman who was shot inside. Some called her a “martyr.”
After she was taken away, the mood soured, though many remained joyous. “We’re making history,” one woman said as she strolled down Independence Avenue with friends.
Beneath streaming flags, including some that read “F— Biden” and that depicted Trump as the movie character Rambo, people loudly exhorted Jesus and chanted “USA.”
Many called friends and family and took videos.
“We weren’t violent before, but we are now,” a middle-aged White man said, talking into his cellphone. “There’s no going back.”
Their compatriots online celebrated the chaos, cheering the violence across a wide array of social media sites and calling for bloodshed in the days ahead.
Trump, who has stoked fury over baseless allegations of a stolen election, called for calm on Twitter as the riots halted a process to tally the electoral college votes certifying Joe Biden as the next president of the United States. But Trump’s plea came in a video that was itself laced with disinformation, and he shared the message only after most of the mob had been pushed outside the building – leaving a trail of online and offline discord in his wake.
Twitter locked Trump out of his account for the first time late Wednesday, the most punitive step the company has taken against the president. The 12-hour timeout also included the removal of three tweets and a warning that Trump could be subject to a ban if he continues tweeting baseless conspiracies about the election and inciting violence.
Facebook took the rare step of removing Trump’s video after hours of internal debate about his actions.
Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., said Congress would need to investigate how the Capitol was so vulnerable to a seemingly disorganized and lightly armed mob, especially given Trump’s incitement and abundant signs that the demonstration would be volatile if not violent.
“I was surprised to learn this morning that the National Guard was not preemptively deployed, given the threats that had been made and the president’s incitement,” Malinowski said. “I’m in no position to judge the response from my limited vantage point, but we’re going to have to do a very serious after-action look at what went wrong and how to make sure that this never happens again.”
Malinowski said there should have been no element of surprise.
Some House Democrats on Wednesday night called for impeaching Trump for a second time in response to the siege of the Capitol they accuse him of fomenting.
“I am drawing up Articles of Impeachment,” Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., wrote on Twitter. “We can’t allow him to remain in office, it’s a matter of preserving our Republic.”
Omar is one of the most liberal Democrats in Congress. But the sentiment was shared in other corners of the party as well – including by members of Pelosi’s leadership team.
“This is outrageous, and the president caused it,” Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., said on Twitter. “We should impeach him tomorrow.”
Trump is scheduled to be in office for two more weeks, and has already been impeached once, in December 2019, on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to his efforts to pressure the president of Ukraine to investigate the Biden family. But that waning tenure does not appear to have dissuaded Democrats from reserving impeachment as an option to be exercised in his final days in office.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the head of the House Democratic Caucus, was asked Wednesday by ABC News whether impeachment was an option. “When I say all options are on the table,” he answered, “I mean all options are on the table.”
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., on Wednesday afternoon said she would no longer object to Biden’s electoral college victory.
“What happened today and continues to unfold in the nation’s capital is disgraceful and un-American,” she said in a statement.
“We must have a peaceful transfer of power,” she said. “What we have seen today is unlawful and unacceptable. I have decided I will vote to uphold the Electoral College results.”
She also urged the president to “condemn and put an end to this madness.”
ผู้นำโลกประณามการ ‘ทำร้ายประชาธิปไตย’ ที่สภาคองเกรสของสหรัฐ
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จงสานส่าน เจ้าของธุรกิจน้ำดื่มจากจีน มหาเศรษฐีเบอร์ 1 ของเอเชีย รวยแซงวอร์เรน บัฟเฟตต์ ไร้เงาแจ็ค หม่า
Damage inside the U.S. Capitol left by pro-Trump protesters on January 6, 2021 in Washington. MUST CREDIT: Photo for The Washington Post by Oliver Contreras
Supporters of President Donald Trump gather Wednesday near the White House with a spillover crowd extending to the Washington Monument. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Matt McClain
Capitol police direct members and staffers out of the House as a mob of rioters storms the Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Bill O’Leary
Supporters of President Donald Trump gather near the Washington Monument on Wednesday. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Matt McClain
Capitol police direct members and staffers out of the House as a mob of rioters storms the Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Bill O’Leary
Supporters of President Trump stand outside the east side of the Capitol. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Marissa J. Lang
