WASHINGTON - Thousands of flag-waving supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump swarmed over the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, forcing lawmakers to evacuate their chambers and delaying by several hours a normally routine procedure clearing the way for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to be sworn in as president and vice president on January 20.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced after hours of chaos around the white-columned edifice that police had secured the area and legislators would reconvene to continue the work of certifying the Electoral College vote that determines the next president.
“Today, a shameful assault was made on our democracy,” Pelosi said. “It was anointed at the highest level of government. It cannot, however, deter us from our responsibility to validate the election of Joe Biden,” she said.
Hours earlier, U.S. television audiences were riveted by live images of closely packed rioters clambering over the exterior of the building, which includes both the House and the Senate. Hundreds more pushed past Capitol Police and poured into the building.
Some tried to break down the doors of the House of Representatives chamber where lawmakers had been debating the first in a series of objections to vote tallies showing Biden had defeated Trump. The legislators were removed and taken to a secure location where they waited for the building to be cleared.
News channels showed photographs of plainclothes police officers with handguns drawn, guarding House members as rioters tried to break through a door. A woman was shot in the melee and later died, a spokesperson for the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department said, adding late Wednesday that no other details were available.
One protester sat in the chair where Vice President Mike Pence had been presiding over the Electoral College discussions before they were interrupted, apparently taking selfies with his phone.
By 5 p.m. local time, Washington Police Chief Robert Contee said the protest had been declared a riot, and at least 13 arrests had been made. Mayor Muriel Bowser imposed a 6 p.m. curfew and the D.C. National Guard was activated.
Trump had encouraged the crowd to march on the Capitol in a fiery midday speech outside the White House, telling his supporters they needed to be strong in order to keep him in office. “We will never give up, we will never concede,” he said.
The outgoing president tweeted twice during the protest, asking his supporters to go home, but assuring them of his affection and repeating his unfounded claims that the election had been stolen from him.
As the mayhem accelerated in and around the Capitol, Trump tweeted a video urging the mob to remain peaceful and respect the police.
“No violence!” Trump said. “Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!"
Facebook and YouTube removed a video in which Trump told his supporters, “I know your pain. I know your hurt. But you have to go home now.”
He then repeated fraudulent claims that the election he lost had been “stolen.” He ended the video telling supporters, “We have to have peace. So, go home. We love you. You’re very special.”
Twitter, which had left the tweeted video on its platform but had blocked retweet and comment functions, removed it later Wednesday, citing that it posed "a risk of violence.”
Citing violation of its policies, Twitter also suspended the president’s Twitter account for 12 hours.
Biden, from his transition hub in the eastern state of Delaware, said, "At this hour our democracy is under unprecedented assault," and he called on Trump to go on national TV and fulfill his obligation as commander in chief to call off the mob.
Law enforcement authorities fired tear gas at the protesters as they stormed the Capitol – the worldwide symbol of U.S. democracy – and called for reinforcements to deal with the demonstrators who entered the building and to keep thousands more outside the building.
The discussions about the Electoral College vote to make Biden the country’s 46th president were halted as police attempted to restore order.
Lawmakers in the House were given gas masks to protect against the tear gas irritant. Plainclothes police officers pointed weapons at one blockaded, windowed door to the House floor to keep out protesters.
Representative Scott Peters, D-Calif., who was in the House chamber when protesters entered, said security officers "made us all get down. You could see that they were fending off some sort of assault, it looked like. They had a piece of furniture up against the door, the entry to the floor from the Rotunda, and they had guns pulled," he said.
"And they just told us to take our pins off," he added, referring to lapel pins members wear so Capitol Police can quickly identify them. The lawmakers were then evacuated.
Elsewhere, a pipe bomb was found and safely detonated outside the headquarters of the Republican National Committee, and a suspicious package prompted the evacuation of the nearby Democratic National Committee. Both are within blocks of the Capitol, according to The New York Times.
The clashes came about two hours after Pence told lawmakers in a letter he would not attempt to block congressional certification of Biden's victory in the November election, even though Trump, Pence’s boss, repeatedly implored him to stop Biden’s path to the White House after his January 20 inauguration.
Trump, in an early-morning Twitter comment and later at the rally with several thousand supporters near the White House, called on Pence to show “extreme courage” to block Biden’s victory.
But when Pence balked, Trump, who has railed for weeks against the election outcome, rebuked his second in command, saying on Twitter, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”
As the debate started, some Republican lawmakers supporting Trump immediately challenged the outcome in the Southwestern state of Arizona, which Biden narrowly won.
The Senate and House, as planned, immediately split into separate debates on the merits of the Arizona challenge.
Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell opposed a dozen Republican colleagues in the Senate and more than 100 House members seeking to upend the Electoral College outcome.
"The voters, the courts, the states have all spoken,” McConnell said. “They've all spoken. If we overruled them it would damage our republic forever. This election was actually not unusually close," with Biden winning the popular vote by more than 7 million votes.
"We cannot simply declare ourselves a national board of elections on steroids,” McConnell said. “The voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken. … If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever."
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said, “The Congress does not determine the outcome of elections, the people do. By the end of the proceedings today, it will be confirmed once again, something that is well-known, and well-settled: The American people elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to be the next president and vice president of the United States.”
“But,” Schumer continued, Republicans “are going to object to the counting of the vote anyway, and in the process, they will embarrass themselves, they will embarrass their party, and worst of all, it will embarrass our country.”
Republican lawmakers seeking to block the certification of the Electoral College outcome echoed Trump’s claims that vote and vote-counting irregularities should void the election outcome.
Normally, the congressional certification of the Electoral College outcome is an hourlong formality once every four years. This time, however, it is a drama-filled spectacle.
Trump for weeks has made baseless claims that he was defrauded out of a second term, even as he lost 60 court challenges to the vote. More than 100 House members and 13 senators said they would object to certifying Biden’s narrow victories in several political battleground states, which could set off hours of contentious debate.
At the rally, Trump told supporters he would march with them to the Capitol, but instead he retreated in a motorcade back to the White House.
Both houses of Congress would have to reject the electoral votes in several states for the result to change, which will not happen.
Democrats narrowly control the House and are certain to support Biden. In the Senate, the minority Democratic bloc, joined by numerous Republicans who have acknowledged Biden’s victory and are opposed to challenging it, are also all but certain to declare Biden the winner.
(VOA)