Congress reconvened Wednesday night and certified the election of Democrat Joe Biden as president, finishing the process that was suspended earlier in the day when a sea of angry protesters backing outgoing President Donald Trump swarmed Capitol Hill and stormed the U.S. Capitol building.
The riots in and around the Capitol came on the heels of a Trump rally, during which the president incited his supporters with unfounded allegations of vote fraud. He urged the crowd to march on the Capitol to “cheer on” members of Congress who had intended to challenge the election results from a number of states where Trump lost.
Instead, the insurrection delayed the typically ceremonial certification process by about six hours and ended up limiting the opportunity for pro-Trump lawmakers to push back on the Electoral College votes in several states.
In the end, the Trump-supporting House and Senate members only ended up challenging and debating the votes in Arizona – which they’d started before the unrest began – and Pennsylvania. Those challenges were each defeated after hours of debate.
Challenges in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin were technically scuttled when senators pulled back their objections.
The process ended around 4 a.m. Thursday, with Congress certifying Biden’s win with 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232, the culmination of a long day that Democrat Chuck Schumer called “one of the darkest days in recent American history,” and a day that will “live forever in infamy.”
Photos and video from Wednesday afternoon showed scenes of protesters breaking windows, bursting into the Capitol, sparring with police officers, posing on the Senate floor, and taking over Congressional offices. At least one woman was shot and killed during the chaos, according to news reports.
Lawmakers were forced to flee the Capitol building around 2 p.m. but reconvened just after 8 p.m. When the session resumed, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called the protesters “unhinged,” and said Congress would not “bow to lawlessness or intimidation.”
“They tried to disrupt our democracy. They failed,” he said. “Now we’re going to finish exactly what we started.”
Schumer said the people who burst into the Capitol were not protesters, but rioters, goons, and domestic terrorists. And he said Trump deserves the blame for inciting them.
“This will be a stain on our country, not so easily washed away,” Schumer said, “the final, terrible, indelible legacy of the 45th president of the United States, undoubtedly our worst.”
Virginia state troopers, the National Guard, and riot police had to be deployed late afternoon to clear protesters from the Capitol grounds. But many protesters remained even after a 6 p.m. curfew imposed by Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser.
The violence ensued shortly after Trump’s rally nearby. During the rally, Trump ranted that November’s election was a “disgrace,” and he continued to spin baseless conspiracy theories about how the election was stolen from him. He vowed that “We will never give up. We will never concede.”
Source: Yahoo News
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