The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Calls to remove Trump in wake of riot
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said President Donald Trump should immediately be removed from office or Congress may proceed to impeach him.
Ms Pelosi joined those calling on the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to force Mr Trump from office.
It came a day after a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, forcing the building into lockdown.
Mr Trump called them “very special” people and said he loved them.
Ms Pelosi said at the Capitol: “The president of the United States incited an armed insurrection against America.”
She said he could do more harm to the country, adding: “Any day can be a horror show for America.”
Meanwhile, the chief of the US Capitol Police said the violent mob who stormed the building wielded metal pipes, chemical irritants and other weapons against law enforcement.
Steven Sund issued a statement saying the rioting protesters “actively attacked” police officers and “were determined to enter into the Capitol Building by causing great damage”.
A Capitol Police officer shot and killed one person, who Mr Sund identified as Ashli Babbitt.
Mr Sund did not identify the officer but said they would be placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.
Mr Sund defended his agency’s response from criticism that officers did not stop the incursion.
He says his agency “had a robust plan” for what he anticipated would be peaceful protests, but what occurred was “criminal riotous behaviour”.
He said more than 50 Capitol and Washington police officers were injured and several Capitol Police officers were taken to hospital with serious injuries.
District of Columbia police later identified the three people who had medical emergencies and died during the storming of the Capitol.
They were 55- year- old Kevin Greeson, of Athens, Alabama; Rosanne Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Georgia and 50-year-old Benjamin Phillips, of Ringtown, Pennsylvania.
Police chief Robert Contee would not go into detail about the exact causes of their deaths and would not say if any of the three was actively involved in breaching the Capitol building on Wednesday.
He said all three “were on the grounds of the Capitol when they experienced their medical emergencies”.
Mr Greeson’s family said he had a heart attack. They described him as a supporter of Mr Trump but denied he condoned violence.
The top prosecutor for the District of Columbia has said “all options are on the table” for charging members of the pro-trump mob that stormed the US Capitol – including sedition.
Michael Sherwin, acting US attorney for Washington DC, said prosecutors plan to file 15 federal cases on Thursday for crimes including unauthorised access and theft of property, and investigators are combing through reams of evidence to bring additional charges.
More than 90 people have been arrested by police in Washington and more arrests are likely.
In a blow to Mr Trump, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said she is resigning, becoming the highest ranking member of the administration to quit in protest after the insurrection at the Capitol.
Ms Chao, who is married to Senate Republican leader Mitch Mcconnell, said the violent attack on the Capitol “has deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside”.
Mr Trump only promised an “orderly transition” after a day of chaos on Capitol Hill. “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 20,” Mr Trump said in a statement posted to Twitter by his social media director.
Mr Trump’s account had been locked by Twitter for posting messages that appeared to justify the assault on the seat of the nation’s democracy.
Facebook blocked Mr Trump “indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks” after the rioting.
The social network’s boss Mark Zuckerberg said it was clear Mr Trump intended to use his remaining time in office “to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power.
Mr Trump added: “While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!”
President-elect Joe Biden called the mob that descended on the US Capitol “domestic terrorists” and laid the blame for the violence at Mr Trump’s feet.
During remarks in Wilmington, Delaware, yesterday, Mr Biden said people should not call the hundreds of Trump supporters who broke into the Capitol protesters.
They were “a riotous mob – insurrectionists, domestic terrorists”. Mr Trump was guilty of “trying to use a mob to silence the voices of nearly 160 million Americans” who voted in November.
He said the president has “made his contempt for our democracy , our constitution, the rule of law, clear in everything he has done” and unleashed an “all-out attack” on the country’ s democratic institutions that ultimately led to the violence on Wednesday.
The president has spent the past two months refusing to concede and
making baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud, even though his own Justice Department, federal courts, including the Supreme Court and state governments have said repeatedly the vote was carried out freely and fairly.
Mr Trump had encouraged his supporters to march on the Capitol to protest politicians’ actions, and he later appeared to excuse the violent occupation by the mob.
“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” he wrote in a message that was later deleted by Twitter.
He added: “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
Mr Trump spent much of Wednesday afternoon watching the insurrection on TV from his private dining room off the Oval Office. Aside from sparing appeals for calm issued at the insistence of his staff, he was largely disengaged.
Instead, a White House official said, most of Mr Trump’s attention was consumed by his ire at Mr Pence, who defied Trump’s demands by acknowledging he did not have the power to unilaterally reject the electoral votes that determine the next president.
Mr Trump only reluctantly issued the tweets and taped a video encouraging an end to the violence.
White House aides were also discussing a potential mass resignation.
Stephanie Grisham, first lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff and a former White House press secretary, submitted her resignation.
Deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, White House social secretary Rickie Niceta and deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews also resigned, according to officials.
Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former chief of staff-turned- special envoy to Nor t hern Ireland told CNBC yesterday that he had called Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “to let him know I was resigning. ... I can’t do it. I can’t stay.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson “unreservedly” condemned Mr Trump’s actions.
“Insofar as he encouraged people to storm the Capitol and insofar as the president consistently has cast doubt on the outcome of a free and fair election, I believe that that was completely wrong.
“I think what President Trump has been saying about that has been completely wrong.
“I unreservedly condemn encouraging people to behave in the disgraceful way that they did in the Capitol.
“And all I can say is I’m very pleased that the president- elect has now been duly confirmed in office and that democracy has prevailed.”
Has ever the end of a presidency been more tawdry and demeaning, and yet strangely fitting? Shorn of his ability to take to Twitter, President Donald Trump finally conceded, through an intermediary, the US election to Joe Biden.
Short of escalating the terrible scenes witnessed on Capitol Hill on Wednesday and with high profile loyalists deserting him, the desperate incumbent was finally out of options. That it should have descended into violence and death is a damning indictment of the man and his presidency.
On January 20, Mr Biden will enter the White House but anyone who thinks that will be the end of the Trump story has not been paying attention. The hate-filled mob which rampaged through the Capitol will be no less angry, will feel no more enfranchised.
It is conceivable Mr Biden could spend the term of his presidency doing little more than striving to pull together the ever-more disparate tribes of American society.
One thing clear from yesterday’s half-hearted concession is no help will come from Mr Trump or his hardcore Republican supporters.
This week’s “insurrection” may have fizzled out to be little more than an angry mob’s howl of rage, but the USA remains a tinderbox.
In such uncertain times, the rest of the world can only watch and hope it does not catch fire.