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WASHINGTON: Police in the US Capitol on Wednesday (January 6) responded with guns in hand and tear gas Wednesday as swarms of protesters stormed and tried to force Congress to undo President Donald Trump’s electoral defeat. shortly after some of Trump’s Republicans released one last – Drop the effort to throw away the results.
Police evacuated the House of Representatives and the Senate after pro-Trump protesters marched through the halls of Congress, forcing both houses to suspend deliberations as they met to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the US elections. November 3.
A protester took the Senate stage and shouted, “Trump won that election.”
Video showed police firing tear gas inside the building.
People wear plastic respirators when evacuated from the House Chamber as protesters attempt to enter the chamber during a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Drew Angerer / Getty Images / AFP)
Vice President Mike Pence, who had chaired the joint session of Congress, had already been escorted out of the Senate.
The chaotic scenes unfolded after Trump, who will leave office on January 20, addressed thousands of protesters, repeating false claims that his election was stolen due to widespread election fraud and irregularities. Lawmakers had been debating a last-ditch effort by pro-Trump lawmakers to challenge the results, an effort that was unlikely to succeed.
Critics had called the effort by Republican lawmakers an attack on American democracy and the rule of law and an attempted legislative coup.
The top two Democrats in Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, called on Trump to demand that all protesters leave the Capitol and its grounds immediately.
Capitol Police told legislators in the House chamber to remove gas masks from under their seats and prepare to put them on. Officers at the front door of the Chamber chamber drew their weapons when someone attempted to enter the chamber.
Weapons in hand United States Capitol police stand near a barricaded door as protesters attempt to break into the House Chamber at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 in Washington. (Photo: AP / Andrew Harnik)
Officers ordered people in the chamber to drop to the ground for safety. Several hundred members of the House, staff and the press were evacuated to an undisclosed location and told not to leave.
Election officials from both parties and independent observers have said there was no significant fraud in the Nov. 3 contest, which Biden won by more than 7 million votes in the national popular vote.
Supporters of President Donald Trump carry flags and banners on Capitol Hill during a rally on January 6, 2021 in Washington. (Photo: AP / Manuel Balce Ceneta)
It has been weeks since states completed certification that Biden, a Democrat, won the election by 306 electoral college votes to Trump’s 232. Trump’s extraordinary challenges to Biden’s victory have been rejected by courts across the country.
Trump had lobbied Pence to scrap election results in states the president narrowly lost, though Pence has no authority to do so.
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It has been weeks since states completed certification that Biden, a Democrat, won the election by 306 electoral college votes to Trump’s 232. Trump’s extraordinary challenges to Biden’s victory have been rejected by courts across the country.
‘WE WILL NOT TAKE IT’
Trump had lobbied Pence to scrap election results in states the president narrowly lost, though Pence has no authority to do so.
“Our country has had enough and we will not take it anymore,” Trump said at the rally.
Certification in Congress, normally a formality, was expected to drag on for several hours as some Republican lawmakers made an effort to reject some state counts, starting with Arizona.
Republicans and Democrats, who had been bitterly divided over that effort, called on the protesters to stand down.
“This is not American and it has to end,” said House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Trump ally who supported the Republican effort to challenge the results.
United States Capitol police officers point their guns at a door that was vandalized in the House Chamber during a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Drew Angerer / Getty Images via AFP)
That attempt was unlikely to be successful, as even many Republicans objected.
“If these elections were annulled on mere accusations from the losing side, our democracy would spiral into death,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who helped give Trump some of his greatest achievements.
Schumer called the challenges in Congress from Trump’s allies “an attempted coup” and said: “Congress does not determine the outcome of an election. The people do.”
Outside the Capitol, members of far-right militias and groups, some in bulletproof vests, mingled with the crowd.
In a video posted on Twitter, Trump repeated his false claims about voter fraud, but urged the protesters to leave.
“You have to go home now, we have to have peace,” he said.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser ordered a city-wide curfew beginning at 6 p.m.
Pence rejected Trump’s demand to reject state electoral votes on the same day that Trump’s fellow Republicans were poised to lose their Senate majority.
“We will never give up,” Trump previously told thousands of cheering supporters on a grassy expanse near the White House called The Ellipse. “We will never concede. It doesn’t happen. It doesn’t concede when there’s a robbery involved.”
Police detain Trump supporters who tried to break through a police barrier on January 6, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Photo: AP / Julio Cortez)
“Mike Pence, I hope you will defend the good of our Constitution and the good of our country. And if you don’t, I will be very disappointed,” Trump said.
In a statement, Pence said that he shares concerns about the “integrity” of the election, but that it is not right that he can accept or reject electoral votes unilaterally.
The United States Constitution does not give Pence the power to unilaterally override the election results.
