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Conservative groups protesting the election victory of US President-elect Joe Biden gathered to protest across the country on Saturday, including in Washington, where far-right groups clashed with counter-protesters despite a heavy police presence. .
Organizers of Stop The Steal, who allege without proof that the victory of the November 3 elections was tainted by fraud, and church groups urged their followers to participate in the “Jericho Marches” and prayer rallies .
But in central Washington, tensions escalated after dark as dozens of pro-Trump “Proud Boys” and “Antifa” counter-protesters clashed, separated by police officers in riot gear and on bicycles.
About 200 members of the Proud Boys, a violent far-right group, had joined the marches early Saturday near the Trump hotel in the capital. Many wore combat uniforms and ballistic vests, wore helmets, and made hand signals used by white nationalists.
The two groups yelled insults at each other across a street near McPherson Square and some set off fireworks, but police kept them apart.
Police pepper sprayed at least two counter-protesters before the Proud Boys left the area and regrouped several blocks away.
Protests were also planned in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona, where the Trump campaign has sought to reverse the vote count.
More than 50 federal and state court rulings have confirmed Biden’s victory. The United States Supreme Court on Friday rejected a 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 in November.
“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,” he 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 annual Army and Navy football game in New York, Trump made three passes in the Marine One helicopter over the cheering protesters.
Trump supporters carrying flags and placards made their way in small knots toward Congress and the Supreme Court through central Washington, which was closed to traffic by police vehicles and garbage trucks.
Few of the protesters wore masks, despite high deaths and Covid-19 cases, defying a mayor’s directive that they be worn outside. Several thousand people demonstrated in Washington, fewer than during a similar protest last month.
While some in the crowd echoed far-right conspiracy theories about the elections, a trailer pulled by a truck waved Trump 2020 flags and a sign that read “Trump Unity” while playing the country song “God Bless the USES”.
“It’s clear the election has been stolen,” said Mark Paul Jones of Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, who sported a revolutionary war-age tricorner hat as he walked to the supreme court with his wife.
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.
In his speech, Flynn told protesters that they were all inside Jericho after breaking down its walls.
Ron Hazard of Morristown, NJ, was one of five people who stopped at the Justice Department to blow shofars, a ram’s horn used in Jewish religious ceremonies, to tear down “the spiritual walls of corruption.”
“We believe that what is happening in this county is something important. It’s a balance between biblical values and unbiblical values, ”Hazard said.
