CHAOS IN D.C.
Pro-Trump mob storms Capitol to try to halt confirmation of Biden’s win; a woman is shot to death; Congress resumes Electoral College vote count
A mob of loyalists, urged on by President Donald Trump, stormed the Capitol on Wednesday, halting for hours Congress’ counting of the electoral votes to confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and prompting police to evacuate lawmakers in a scene of violence and chaos that shook the core of American democracy.
There was no parallel in modern U.S. history, with insurgents acting in the president’s name vandalizing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, smashing windows, looting art and briefly taking control of the Senate chamber, where they took turns posing for photographs with fists up on the rostrum where Vice President Mike Pence had just presided. Outside the building, they erected a gal
lows, punctured the tires of a police SUV and left a note on its windshield saying, “PELOSI IS SATAN.”
“This is what you’ve gotten, guys,” Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, yelled as the Senate was first thrust into a lockdown, apparently addressing his Republican colleagues who were leading the charge to press Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.
“This is what the president has caused today, this insurrection,” Romney seethed later.
The upheaval unfolded on a day when Democrats secured a stunning pair of victories in runoff elections in Georgia, winning effective control of the Senate and the complete levers of power in Washington, and as Congress was meeting in what would normally have been a
perfunctory and ceremonial session to declare Biden’s election. But in a move that drove a painful wedge among Republicans, a faction in their ranks — egged on by the president — was set to contest the outcome and trumpet his false claims of voting fraud, giving voice inside the Capitol to those who ultimately forced their way in, stopping the process in its tracks. By nightfall, lawmakers had reconvened to count the votes and confirm Biden’s win, but only after lawmakers and Pence had been evacuated in shocking scenes and took shelter near the Capitol, amid violent clashes between protesters and law enforcement. Capitol Police, reinforced by the FBI and National Guard in tactical gear, successfully retook the Capitol complex just before 6 p.m., after more than three hours of mayhem. Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington declared a citywide curfew from 6 p.m. Wednesday to 6 a.m. Thursday.
After being hastily evacuated, most lawmakers were massed together for hours in secure locations on the Capitol grounds, but small groups reported being stranded for a time in offices and hideaways throughout the building. Determined not to be intimidated, senators and House members were adamant they would finish the work they had started, ensuring Biden’s inauguration Jan. 20.
“After calls to the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the vice president, we have decided we should proceed tonight at the Capitol once it is cleared for use,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to colleagues.
“Today, a shameful assault was made on our democracy,” she wrote. “It was anointed at the highest level of government. It cannot, however, deter us from our responsibility to validate the election of Joe Biden.”
Republicans were pressuring the sizable group within their ranks that had planned several hours of objections to Biden’s victory to drop their challenges and allow the election result to stand uncontested.
The siege was the climax of a weekslong campaign by Trump, filled with baseless claims of fraud and outright lies, to try to overturn a democratically decided election that he lost. He fought the result in court with dozens of spurious lawsuits that he lost, he outright pressured Republican leaders in key battleground states to reverse the will of the voters, and he fought to turn the congressional count into the site of his final stand.
Far from discouraging confrontation, Trump had encouraged his supporters earlier Wednesday to confront Republican lawmakers going against him to side with the Constitution.
“We will never concede,” he told a group of thousands gathered near the White House, inveighing against members of his own party preparing to finalize his loss as “weak Republicans, pathetic Republicans” whose leadership had gone “down the tubes.” He then repeatedly told them to march to the Capitol, where the vote tallying was about to get underway. The violence began a little more than two hours later.
But across town in the Capitol, a number of Republicans made it clear they were simply unwilling to follow Trump’s lead, stating their opposition in stark terms.
In a speech just before the violence broke out, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the most powerful Republican on Capitol Hill, forcefully rebuked Trump and members of his own party, warning that the drive to overturn a legitimate election risked sending democracy into “a death spiral.”
“The voters, the courts and the states have all spoken,” said McConnell, the majority leader. “If we overrule them all, it would damage our republic forever.”
Yet even as he spoke, it wa
s becoming clear that the vicious cycle had already been unleashed. Within an hour, McConnell was in the grip of his Capitol Police detail and being rushed out of his chamber with other senators as members of his own party chanted curses to his name.
Biden, in his own remarks, demanded that Trump intervene to tamp down an “unprecedented assault” on democracy. He called for a televised address by Trump to “fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege.”
“This is not dissent. It’s disorder. It’s chaos. It borders on sedition, and it must end now,” Biden said. “I call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward.”
Trump initially stayed quiet as the mob rampaged through the Capitol. When he did make himself heard, it was to call for support for law enforcement in a tweet that concluded, “Stay peaceful!” But not long after, he released a brief video repeating his disproved claim that “the election was stolen” and speaking in sympathetic and affectionate terms to members of the mob. Later, he absolved the mobsters of their gross assault, effectively arguing that their actions had been warranted.
“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,” Trump wrote Wednesday evening in a tweet, which Twitter later removed. “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!
The president had also intensely pressured Pence, who as vice president oversees the counting, to go rogue and unilaterally throw out the votes of key battleground states Trump lost. Shortly before the session began, Pence denied him in a bold statement after four years of loyal alliance.
“I do not believe that the founders of our country intended to invest the vice president with unilateral authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted during the joint session of Congress, and no vice president in American history has ever asserted such authority,” he wrote.
Once the counting got underway, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona quickly lodged the first such objection to Gosar’s home state, sending senators and House members to their respective chambers for up to two hours of debate on Trump’s baseless fraud claims.
About 2:15 p.m., as the House and Senate separately debated the objection, security rushed Pence out of the Senate chamber, and the Capitol building was placed on lockdown after the rioters surged past barricades and law enforcement toward the legislative chambers.
Wednesday night, the Senate voted 93-6 to reject the challenge to the Arizona result.
Depending on how many objections were raised, Congress was expected to ratify Biden’s victory late Wednesday or early Thursday.