The US Congress certified Donald Trump’s presidential election victory on Monday in an event filled with symbolism, four years after he led a violent mob to disrupt a similar ceremony in an effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Was provoked.
Trump’s defeated Democratic opponent in the November election, Vice President Kamala Harris, chaired a joint Senate and House of Representatives session to validate the results. As the certificates confirming Trump’s victory were brought into the House chamber, Harris took her place on the dais alongside Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson.
The four tellers – Senators Deb Fischer of Nebraska and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Representatives Joe Morrell of New York and Brian Still of Wisconsin – took turns announcing each state’s Electoral College results, and certified the certificates as “regular and authentic.” ” told. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance sat in the front row of the House chamber as his and Trump’s victory became official.
When Harris formally announced the final results, Republicans applauded Trump’s victory. Harris remained stoic throughout the session, but smiled slightly when Democratic members of the chamber clapped to recognize her 226 electoral votes.
“I firmly believe that America’s democracy is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it,” Harris told reporters after the conclusion of the joint session. “Otherwise, it is too fragile, and it will not be able to withstand moments of crisis. And today, America’s democracy stands up.”
As expected, Democrats did not challenge the results in any way, given that long-standing tradition dictates that certification should be a mere formality in a peaceful transfer of power. However, the proceedings came amid unprecedented security measures at the US Capitol and Washington DC Police, fearing a repeat of the tumultuous events of January 6, 2021, when Trump’s supporters attempted to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory amid false allegations. Had tried. stolen.
in one op-ed Published by the Washington Post on Sunday, Biden urged Americans to remember the painful lessons learned after the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
“We should be proud that our democracy withstood this attack. And we should be glad we will never see such a shameful attack again this year,” Biden wrote. “But we must not forget this. We must remember the wisdom of the saying that any nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it. We cannot accept a repeat of what happened four years ago.
US Capitol Police took action to prevent any possible disruption on Monday Additional precautions including deployment of new equipment and more staff to ensure a smooth certification process. The inclement weather in snow-covered Washington on Monday morning due to Winter Storm Blair has further intimidated potential protesters.
“We cannot be taken by surprise again,” said Tom Manger, chief of the U.S. Capitol Police. SaidReferring to how four years ago the police were outnumbered and overpowered by the angry mob.
Members of Congress and Senators in 2021 forced to take shelter Rioters ransacked offices and searched for prominent Congress members, including then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Harris’s predecessor as vice president, Mike Pence – who was charged with the same constitutional role of presiding over the certification – was escorted from the building by security personnel as rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence”. Because he refused to comply with Trump’s demand. Accept the outcome and let the election be thrown your way instead.
However, a repeat of four years ago on Monday was highly unlikely. Democrats have accepted Trump’s Electoral College and popular vote victories without objection. He has indicated that he will not even issue symbolic challenges to his voters, as some of them did after his 2016 victory, which he achieved through the Electoral College system while losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.
This time, Trump won both the Electoral College, by a margin of 312 to 226, as well as the popular vote, by a margin of nearly 2.5 million.
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“I think you’re going to have a normal type of transfer, and I think we’ll respect the wishes of the American people … unlike what happened on January 6, 2021,” Morell said. told Politico“I feel like it’s worth saying again and again.”
More than 1,500 people have been charged with crimes in connection with the 2021 attack, which resulted in five deaths that day and four more in the days and months that followed, including a police officer who killed himself. Nearly 1,000 participants have been convicted.
Trump has promised to issue presidential pardons to some of the January 6 attackers in the “first hours” of his second term, which would begin later this month, but Manger warned that such a decision would harm all The safety of US law enforcement could be at risk. Officer.
“What message does that send?” manger told the Washington Post On Sunday. “What message does this send to police officers across the country, if no one thinks that a conviction for an assault or worse crime against a police officer should be upheld, given what we see police officers go through every day? Ask to do?”
While there was no meaningful anniversary rally outside the Capitol on Monday due to the snow-packed day, a handful of Trump loyalists instead gathered on the lower level of the Washington Hyatt Regency down the street to lay out their vision for the future of Jan. 6 . participants.
The conference, organized from prison by defendant Jake Lang on January 6, included several other insurrectionists as well as prominent right-wing figures such as Mike Lindell, influential Isabella Maria DeLuca, and self-proclaimed “Secretary of Retribution” Ivan Ryklin.
The event was a far cry from the thousands who stormed the Capitol that fateful day in 2021, but the setting didn’t dampen the intense rhetoric of the speakers, especially when considering Raiklin’s vision of retribution. According to Raiklin, a former Green Beret and leader of the movement to overturn the 2020 election results, Trump’s first act should be to announce a sweeping amnesty plan that would extend to all insurgents.
“Everyone,” Raiklin said on the sidelines of the conference, “even violent people.” [jail]They have already faced their time, rightly so, because this is all political. They were overcharged.”