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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Conservative groups alleging without evidence that President-elect Joe Biden stole the U.S. election gathered for protests across the country on Saturday, including one in Washington that featured President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser. , recently pardoned.
Organizers Stop The Steal, linked to pro-Trump agent Roger Stone, and church groups urged their followers to participate in “Jericho Marches” and prayer rallies.
Protests were also planned in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona, where the Trump campaign has questioned vote counts.
More than 50 federal and state court rulings have confirmed Biden’s victory over Trump. The United States Supreme Court on Friday rejected a risky lawsuit brought by Texas and backed by Trump that seeks to dismiss the results of voting in four states.
“Whatever the ruling yesterday … everyone take a deep breath,” retired Army General Mike Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, told protesters in front of the Supreme Court, referring to the court’s refusal to listen. the case of Texas.
Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contacts with the former Russian ambassador, spoke in his first public speech since Trump pardoned him on Nov. 24.
“My job for you is to go back to where you are from” and make demands, Flynn told the crowd, without being more specific. The US Constitution “is not about collective liberties, it is about individual liberties, and they designed it that way,” Flynn said.
Trump has refused to admit defeat, claiming without proof that he was denied victory through massive fraud. On his way to Andrews Air Force Base and then to the Army and Navy football game in New York, Trump made three passes in the Marine One helicopter over the cheering protesters.
PROUD GUYS
Hundreds of Trump supporters carrying flags and placards made their way in small knots toward Congress and the Supreme Court through downtown Washington, which was closed to traffic by police vehicles and garbage trucks.
Few wore masks, despite high deaths and COVID-19 cases, defying a mayor’s directive that they be worn outside.
About 200 “Proud Boys,” a violent far-right group, joined the march near the Trump hotel. Many wore combat uniforms, ballistic vests, and wore helmets.
A truck-pulled trailer waved Trump 2020 flags and a sign that read “Trump Unity,” as it blared the country song “God Bless the USA.”
Some protesters in Washington echoed far-right conspiracy theories about the elections.
“It’s clear the election has been stolen,” said Mark Paul Jones of Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, sporting a Revolutionary War tricorner hat as he walked to the Supreme Court with his wife.
Trump “is being removed from office,” he said, adding that Biden won with the collaboration of the Supreme Court, the FBI, the Justice Department and the CIA. The Supreme Court “didn’t even take the time to hear the case,” Jones said.
Eddy Miller of Philadelphia, who sold Trump campaign T-shirts, said he was sure “there was fraud despite what I see on the news” about court rulings overturning the fraud allegations.
Lori Hood, who traveled from Denver with her children, Adrian, 23, and Colten, 11, carried a sign that read “We love you Supreme Court, but we will not tolerate anarchy.” Adrian, with a US flag draped over his shoulders, said the courts in Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania had illegally substituted their power for that of state legislatures that should appoint pro-Trump voters.
When asked why he believed there was fraud when the courts did not find it, he said: “It is what I see with my eyes.”
BATTLE OF JERICHO
Some protesters made reference to the biblical miracle of the Battle of Jericho, in which the city walls collapsed after horn-blowing soldiers and priests marched around it.
Ron Hazard of Morristown, New Jersey, was one of five people who stopped at the Justice Department to blow shofars to tear down “the spiritual walls” of corruption.
“We believe that what is happening in this county is something important. It is a balance between biblical values and unbiblical values, ”he said.
His small group, including one member wearing a Jewish prayer shawl known as a tallit, are Christians “who love the Jewish people. We love Israel, ”he said.
In the afternoon, members of the Proud Boys, using hand signals used by white supremacists, shouted and exchanged insults with protesters in Black Lives Matter Square near the White House. The two sides were separated by a line of police officers on bicycles.
(Information by Jonathan Landay; additional information by Timothy Gardner; edited by Heather Timmons, Cynthia Osterman and Tom Brown)
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