‘Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?’
The Capitol Police had assured Congress that rioters wouldn’t be able to get in, said Karoun Demirjian in The Washington Post. Then the mob broke through, and elected representatives and staff had to run and hide.
THE GROWING CROWDS outside the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon sounded menacing but at bay as senators began to debate challenges to the electoral college vote. A top adviser to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stepped out of the ornate chamber for a short break. Alone in the Capitol’s marble halls, just outside the chamber’s bronze doors, it was suddenly apparent that the citadel of U.S. democracy was falling to the mob incited by President Donald Trump. A cacophony of screaming, shouting, and banging echoed from the floor below. McConnell’s security detail rushed past and into the chamber. The adviser began walking toward the Rotunda and came face to face with a U.S. Capitol Police officer sprinting in the opposite direction. The two made eye contact, and the officer forced out a single word: “Run!”
The aide to McConnell darted down a side hallway lined with offices. He jiggled one locked doorknob, then another. A coworker poked his head out of the office of McConnell’s speechwriter. The adviser lunged, pushing him and a colleague back inside. The screaming and shouting soon seemed right outside. Only then, a text from the Capitol Police blared on every phone in the room: “Due to security threat inside: immediately, move inside your office, take emergency equipment, lock the doors, take shelter.”
Three senior GOP aides piled furniture against the door and tried to move stealthily, worried that the intruders would discover them inside. In waves, the door to the hall heaved as rioters punched and kicked it. The crowd yelled “Stop the steal!” Some chanted menacingly, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?”
Peering out a window into a courtyard below, the adviser could see scores of people still streaming in—and no police in sight. Armed only with their phones and some of the best Rolodexes in the world, lawmakers and their aides began calling and texting anyone they thought could help—the secretary of the Army, the acting attorney general, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, governors of nearby states, the District mayor.
The McConnell adviser began calling and texting former top officials at the Justice Department. Speaking in a whisper, he told one the situation was dire: If backup did not arrive soon, people could die.
N THE DAY of the rally, lawmakers and their aides had already prepared for Republicans to force a marathon day—perhaps 12 hours or more of floor debate—before formalizing Biden’s victory. The evening before, lawmakers peppered top Capitol security officials with questions.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the chair of the House Administration Committee that oversees Capitol security, asked whether Capitol Police had enough officers to handle a crowd expected to reach 30,000, and if they had the National Guard on standby and available to help. Steven Sund, the chief of Capitol Police, insisted that, yes, they had both bases covered.
By around 1 p.m., as the joint session began, the mood in the crowd outside had started to shift. Trump had just given a one-hour speech to thousands of supporters amassed on the Ellipse near the White House, excoriating his enemies and reiterating his baseless claims of fraud. GOP lawmakers, he emphasized, needed to take a stand.
Owere collapsing.
Before 1:30 p.m., Lofgren heard from staff that a wall of people had been able to push into the Capitol steps on the west side. Through the windows of the House chamber, Lofgren’s aides could see outside that a ragtag group of rioters had climbed atop the risers and the platforms. Outside on the west side of the building, a handful of Capitol Police officers had been backed into a corner, under the scaffolding holding up the inaugural stage. One was pulled down a set of stairs and then beaten and kicked while he tried to cover his head.
Atop the stairs, another had his helmet ripped off as he tried to hold up the last remaining metal barrier before the crowd could flood into the building. A person in the mob sprayed something at an officer. Another lifted a hammer above his head as if preparing to throw it, and then instead began striking at the barrier, where officers were holding it with their hands.
House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving assured Lofgren that things would be fine. The doors were all locked, he told her. “Nobody can get in,” Irving said.
HORTLY BEFORE 2 p.m., rioters were on all sides of the building. They waved Trump flags from landings and porticos, while the most violent rained pipes, rocks, and other objects on the many doors and windows. One used a police shield to break a window. A rioter
STrump’s supporters began streaming east along Pennsylvania Avenue. They first reached the west side of the building. The crowd grew 10 deep, then 20 deep as the soon-to-be rioters spilled in along all sides of the Capitol, moving aside waisthigh metal barriers. A seeming fortress from a distance, the Capitol contains more than 400 separate doors, entryways, and ground-level windows. And police lines on all sides of the building
AROUND 2 P.M. on the Senate side, Vice President Mike Pence was in the chair of the presiding officer when aides started motioning to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who holds the largely ceremonial role of president pro tempore of the Senate, that he had to replace him. The vice president hurried out a door. At that moment, one floor below, rioters crashed through windows and climbed into the Capitol and clashed with police, including a lone black Capitol Police officer who tried to prevent them from ascending toward the Senate chamber. A video captured by Igor Bobic, a congressional reporter for HuffPost on the scene, window. Outside in the hallway the intruders kept coming, trying to open doors. The McConnell aides heard a woman praying loudly for “the evil of Congress to be brought to an end.”
The senior McConnell adviser reached a former law firm colleague who had just left the Justice Department: Will Levi, who had served as Attorney General William Barr’s chief of staff. They needed help—now, he told Levi. From his home, Levi immediately called FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich, who was in the command center in the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
Capitol Police had said earlier that they didn’t need help, but Bowdich decided he couldn’t wait for a formal invitation. He dispatched a tactical team to secure the safety of U.S. senators, with two more SWAT teams to follow. “Get their asses over there. Go now,” Bowdich told the first team’s commander. “We don’t have time to huddle.”
From their secure locations, meanwhile, Pelosi, House Majority
Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) made calls for help. One went out to Virginia
Gov. Ralph Northam. “Ralph, there’s glass being broken around me,” Northam recalled Pelosi saying. “I’ve heard there’s been gunfire. We’re just very, very concerned right now.”
Amid the mayhem, a large group of senators were secretly led to a room in a Senate office building. Michael Stenger, the Senate sergeant at arms, was with them. “How does this happen?” demanded Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Stenger’s answer was practically inaudible. As Graham pressed, Stenger’s voice got weaker and smaller. “Here’s your mission: Take back the Senate,” Graham told Stenger. “Whatever you need to do, do it. We’re not leaving this place. We’re not going to be run out by a mob.” Finally, the Senate sergeant at arms sat down, saying to no one in particular, “I wish I had just retired last week.” Finally, by 6 p.m., a perimeter around the Capitol was secured. A few hours later, shaken lawmakers filed back in, surrounded by the wreckage of the day’s attack: smashed windows, splintered furniture, a bust of President Zachary Taylor smeared with what appeared to be blood. They went back to work. At 3:42 a.m., Vice President Mike Pence affirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.