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Witnesses to the invasion of the Congress building last Wednesday reconstructed the most tense moments of a day that left five dead, 14 wounded, more than 50 arrested and a fatal blow to the image and leadership of the world power.
Wednesday’s session in the United States Congress began at one in the afternoon. At that time, tempers were already tense due to the pressure exerted since the morning by President Donald Trump so that legislators would not recognize Joe Biden’s victory in the elections.
Meanwhile, a few blocks from the Capitol, in an area near the White House, thousands of pro-Donald Trump protesters began to meet with a slogan: “The elections were a fraud,” words that their leader repeated ad nauseam for two months, without any proof.
Tempers began to heat up when the president told his followers: “We will never give up. It is not granted when there is a robbery involved, ”he said, and again pressured Vice President Mike Pence to reject the results of the Electoral College. Later, the order was to march towards Congress.
And there the debacle began. The group of about 10,000 protesters, according to local press reports, reached the doors of the Capitol. Moods were beginning to rise. WKYC channel reports already anticipated what could happen. “I hope Vice President Pence has courage today and I hope that any politician who believes he has a future will show the courage to stand up and do the right thing,” said Lou Murray, a Boston life insurance salesman who was at the rally.
“I’m only here to support the president,” added David Wideman, a 45-year-old firefighter who traveled from Memphis, Tennessee, who confessed his confusion because Trump’s legal team could not overturn the results.
Shouting “stop the robbery” several men jumped the three security fences that surround the Capitol and surpassed the police. “It was a disaster. No one was communicating. No one knew what we were supposed to be doing there, ”said a federal law enforcement officer posted to Capitol Hill.
A security flaw? Mitch McConnell, Republican leader in the Senate, takes it for granted: “The whole day reflected the shocking failures in the security of the building,” he claimed
Videos from the live broadcast showed Trump supporters outside the Capitol yelling at police trying to contain them: “They didn’t win shit. They stole it and you are defending them ”, shouted a member of the protest.
“Those are our representatives who are stealing our freedom,” shouted another. A rioter tried to steal an officer’s baton. And another used a shield to break windows in the Capitol, then they broke in and still others even used ropes to scale the building.
The confusion was not only of the agents who had to protect the security of the building. AFP photographer Saul Loeb, who was in Congress covering the session, recalls that suddenly the loudspeakers announced a security alert requesting that no one move from where they were.
“As a photographer, you hear that and you want to know what’s going on,” he explained. He went out, heard noises, went downstairs, and met a “dozen protesters just in front of the entrance to the Chamber.”
“It is very rare to see a protester inside the Capitol, so seeing a dozen, right in front of the Senate door, was very unusual (…), so I thought this would be the story of the day.”
It will be the story of the year. At that time chaos and confusion reigned. The 534 senators and representatives were evacuated to the basement of the building wearing gas masks.
As the Trumpistas advanced in their attack on the Capitol, the politicians were leaving the building through the corridors built after 9/11 that connect with other state buildings, a military base and the subway. They all left, but Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi remained in the building’s bunker until the assault ended.
“I never thought they would be afraid of us,” said one of the men who broke into the building. “But today they are afraid of us,” he congratulated himself, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The taking had already taken an hour and no one from the Donald Trump government spoke out. “We come for bodies. We are at war, ”said some of the most aggressive protesters, according to Buzzfeed. In their advance the mob destroyed furniture, flags and now the FBI indicates that they took important documents.
The protesters mostly ignored the journalists who recorded the events. “They let us photograph them, we could be close enough. We were often encouraged to have some. They were in a jovial mood, happy to be there, in a place where they didn’t plan to be … in awe of themselves, ”the AFP photographer recalls. “They were basically doing what they wanted, standing on benches, photographing the statues (…), loud and disturbing,” he said.
It was already taking three hours when Saul Loeb saw protesters entering the office of Democrat Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives. “It was full of protesters, with their MAGA hats, who took selfies, filmed for social networks, went through their things, their notes and opened the desk drawers.”
And there came one of the images that went around the world: Richard Barnett put his feet on the desk and started shuffling papers. Also the snapshot of Jake Angeli, the man with the horns and the naked torso who momentarily presided over the Upper House. And that of Adam Johnson, surprised by the cameras when he took the podium of the Speaker of the House.
Among the countless surprises of this incredible day, Saul highlighted two more: the “long period during which he did not see any police presence and the fact that with all these people inside, moving freely, the building seems to have been relatively intact.” Within the mob there were also people from other countries. The portal El Tiempo Latino registered the participation of several Latin American citizens. “The elections were stolen here. This was all stolen, it was the same process they used in Venezuela, in Ecuador, in Argentina. The machines, the number changes (…) That was a tremendous robbery, ”said a Latina woman.
It was only hours later that Mike Pence and the Secretary of Homeland Security decided to send reinforcements to Congress, according to press reports, without consulting with Donald Trump. Then the eviction began.
“There were people even on the second floor of the Capitol,” said US Army veteran Kevin Loftus with emotion, dressed in military clothing and a cap with the slogan Make America Great Again.
Speaking to Efe, Loftus explained, “I took two selfies and then the police began to tear gas at us and we had to leave.”
David Spencer, a Florida businessman who attended the protest with his wife and daughter, and observed the crowd gathered in front of the Capitol stairs sitting on camping chairs, told Efe that in his opinion everything had been avoided if “Pence had done his job …” Same words that Trump used to justify the actions of his protesters and whose message earned him the suspension of his Twitter account.
At 6 o’clock in the afternoon, calm seemed to return to the Capitol on a day that exposed the serious problems facing the world power: millions of citizens who lost faith in democracy because of the lies of a president who never knew how to behave in the same way. height of office. Thus ends the reality of Donald Trump.
