Congress members flee during rampage
WASHINGTON >> 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 Presidentelect 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 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 gallows, 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.
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.
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 was 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 mob of Trump loyalists was already massing by the thousands on Capitol Hill when Congress convened in joint session at 1 p.m.
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 demonstrators surged past barricades and law enforcement toward the legislative chambers.
In a scene of unrest common in other countries but seldom witnessed in the history of the U. S. capital, hundreds of people in the mob barreled past fence barricades outside the Capitol and clashed with officers. Shouting demonstrators mobbed the secondfloor lobby just outside the Senate chamber, as law enforcement officials placed themselves in front of the chamber doors.
For a time, senators and members of the House were locked inside their respective chambers. Just outside the locked doors, Trump’s supporters violently tussled with police as at least one person took to the dais of the Senate chamber to declare his support for Trump.
As the mob closed in, senators were rushed into the well of the Senate and down into the basement, where they left the building via an underground tunnel.
On the other side of the Capitol, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., yelled out to Republicans on the House floor: “Call Trump, tell him to call off his revolutionary guards.”
Multiple lawmakers reported that the Capitol Police had instructed them to take cover on the House f loor and prepare to use gas masks after tear gas was dispersed in the Capitol Rotunda of the Capitol. Shortly after, police escorted senators and members of House from the building to others nearby, as the mob swarmed the hallways just steps from where lawmakers were meeting, carrying proTrump paraphernalia.
When the violence broke out, it was Pence, sheltering in the Capitol, not Trump who approved the deployment of the D.C. National Guard, according to Defense Department officials.
“I don’t recognize our country today, and the members of Congress who have supported this anarchy do not deserve to represent their fellow Americans,” said Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va.