Mob storms US Capitol to protest Biden victory certification

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – In a scene more reminiscent of the Middle East (as CNN suggested) than a modern industrialized democracy, let alone the United States, a mob succeeded in breaching the security cordon around the US Capitol building, entering it, and occupying and vandalizing Congressional offices.

At the time, the two chambers of Congress—the Senate and the House of Representatives—were in the process of considering challenges to the results of the November elections.

Last month, the Electoral College declared that Joe Biden was the winner by a vote of 306 to 232. The Electoral College is supposed to be the final determinant of the results of a presidential election.

In its meeting on Wednesday, the deliberations of the US Congress were supposed to be nothing more than a formal acknowledgment of the Electoral College’s determination.

Yet President Donald Trump has refused to accept that he lost the election and his Congressional allies sought to use Wednesday’s vote to challenge the results.

That challenge had no chance of success because it would have required the approval of both chambers of Congress. Democrats control the House of Representatives, and they would not have voted against their own victorious candidate. So it was simply impossible that any such vote would succeed.

Pandering to Trump’s Base—resisted by Mike Pence, but not by others

Nonetheless, some 140 Republican members of the House and some dozen Republican Senators signed up to challenge the results. They sought to capture Trump’s base to promote their own political futures.

Roughly an hour before the Congressional session was to begin, Trump addressed a “Save America” rally outside the White House. He riled up the crowd with invented tales of electoral fraud, fed to him by a small coterie of sycophantic advisers, including Rudy Giuliani, mayor of New York from 1994 to 2001.

Trump also sought to pressure Vice President Mike Pence, who would preside over the joint session of Congress that would review the election results. Trump claimed, falsely, that Pence had the authority to declare vote counts from some states to be invalid and send them back to the states for revising.

Indeed, as he spoke on Wednesday, just before the Congressional session, Trump’s threat to Pence and all other Republicans was that you will have no political future, unless you do what I am saying. Otherwise, we will run candidates against you in primaries—which, given Trump’s hold on the Republican base, could well result in their defeat.

However, Pence had drawn his own line in the sand. He resisted Trump’s pressure. As it emerged, Pence had sent a letter to Congress even before the session began, affirming that he lacked “unilateral authority to decide presidential contests” and could not change the results of the election.

Nonetheless, other Republicans proceeded to challenge the results. As they did, a mob broke through the police cordon around the Capitol building and then rushed into it.

Congressmen hustled out; four die, offices vandalized

The Capitol Police, who were responsible for security, acted quickly to protect the lawmakers and move them to safety.

In the melee, one Trump supporter was fatally shot: Ashli Babbit. That happened, as a group of men battered the glass of a wooden door and broke it as they attempted to force their way into the main chamber.

Babbit was climbing through the broken window of the battered door when she was shot.

Babbit had traveled to Washington from San Diego. She was a veteran of the US Air Force and had served four tours as a high-level security official in the Air Force, according to local San Diego television.

Left unclear is why a former Air Force security official would have thought that was acceptable behavior and did not recognize that the mob battering the door to the chamber might be perceived to be imperiling the lives of Congressional officials—with all the consequences that could entail.

Babbit’s husband described his wife as “a strong supporter of Trump and a great patriot to all who knew her.”

Three other individuals also died in the melee, as a result of unspecified medical emergencies, according to Washington DC officials.

With the Capitol building largely vacated, the protestors took it over. One man made himself comfortable in the office of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi:

Another protestor was pictured, checking his phone, at the Senate dais, just recently vacated by Vice-President Pence.

After Capitol cleared, lawmakers resolve to finish election certification

Subsequently, Metropolitan Police, along with the Washington DC National Guard, were brought in to support the beleaguered Capitol Police, and they cleared the building.

A key aim of the mob had been to block the Congressional certification of the elections, so Congressional leaders resolved to finish that task on the same day. That night, in a sobered Senate, there were far less objections to the election tally than had been voiced earlier that day.

The Senate returned “to slap away a frivolous election challenge,” the Associated Press reported, “but its secondary purpose seemed to be to rise from the wreckage of a shocking day,” in which “a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump” had forced them to flee the Capitol.

As a report in The Atlantic Monthly put it, “The politicians who enabled Trump did not expect the president’s followers to ever break through the glass windows of the Capitol and ascend the Senate dais.”

“They did not anticipate that a man wearing a ‘Camp Auschwitz’ shirt or others, with Confederate flags or dressed as fur-clad Vikings, would breach the building,” it continued. Rather, “Trump, for them, has been a blunt instrument they can use to retain power, appoint conservative judges, and pass tax cuts.”

That explains the Senate’s reticence on Wednesday night. However, the House of Representatives appeared much less affected. Republican lawmakers continued their objections to the election tally into the very wee hours of the morning.

One notable exception was Rep. Michael McCaul (Texas), the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Along with the Committee’s new chairman, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D, New York), McCaul issued a statement criticizing Trump and denouncing the assault on the Capitol.

“Today’s violence – an inevitable result when leaders in positions of power misled the public – will certainly empower dictators and damage struggling democracies,” they said, as they called for the arrest and prosecution of those involved.

“We must send a message to the world that this is not acceptable,” they continued, “and that America continues to stand for the rule of law. It is time to make the peaceful transition of power. The world is watching.”

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany