Both chambers of the US Congress voted to shut down a Republican appeal against the presidential election results in the state of Arizona, after being interrupted by pro-Trump masses storming the Capitol and forcing them to evacuate earlier on Wednesday.
Lawmakers carried out the certification of Joe Biden’s November election win after a violent protest where one woman was shot and killed as hundreds of demonstrators breached security and scaled the steps of the iconic Capitol Building.
In the House of Representatives, 121 representatives voted in support of the Republican appeal, with 303 representatives voting against it, while in the Senate earlier only six senators supported the objection, led by Republican Senator Ted Cruz, while 93 voted against.
Three more people died in separate medical emergencies, Washington DC police said. The head of the force, Robert Contee, said that four people were arrested on weapons charges and 47 were arrested for violating a nighttime curfew issued by Mayor Muriel Bowser due to the violence which went into place at 6 pm.
The protests began hours after US President Donald Trump riled up his supporters with baseless allegations of election fraud and encouraged them to march to the Capitol.
Television footage showed protesters inside the building after breaking in through a window, banging on the doors of the chambers. At least one protester was standing at the Senate dais.
The Senate and House of Representatives abruptly called off their sessions, and lawmakers were evacuated as rioters marched through the labyrinthine complex and the building went into lockdown.
However they began to return after the House Sergeant at Arms confirmed the building was secure.
Vice President Mike Pence condemned the deadly violence “in the strongest possible terms,” as lawmakers resumed the electoral vote count.
“To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today: You did not win. Violence never wins, freedom wins. And this is still the people’s house,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that those who attempted to obstruct the Congress “failed.”
“The United States Senate will not be intimidated, we will not be kept out of this chamber by thugs, mobs or threats,” McConnell said from the Senate floor as Congress resumed.
The situation was fraught earlier, with tear gas and some flares being used. There were militias from multiple states and protesters flew Trump and QAnon flags from the steps of the building.
“Obviously this is not what we want to happen but it’s what we need to happen now,” one supporter told dpa. “Hang the traitors,” another said.
The National Guard was later deployed to Washington DC in response.
There were injuries among officers, Contee said, adding that protesters had used chemical irritants on police to gain entry to the Capitol. He said that at least 14 police officers were injured in the clashes, two of them seriously.
One of those officers was pulled into the crowd by protesters, where he was attacked and the second suffered significant facial injuries when he was hit by a projectile, the police chief said.
Trump, who was under increasing pressure to call on the protesters to disperse and denounce the action, asked his supporters to “go home” in a video posted to social media hours after they breached the Capitol as he also repeated the false allegations that the US election was “fraudulent” which had riled up the crowds earlier in the day.
“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” he also said in a tweet. “Remember this day forever!”
Facebook deleted US Trump’s video asking Washington protesters to go home, while Twitter flagged it.
The posts led social media companies to block the president’s accounts.
Twitter was the first to strike with a 12-hour suspension and a permanently suspend Trump’s account if he failed to remove three tweets flagged citing “risk of violence” or in case he violated the platforms rules including its “Violent Threats policies.”
At an earlier rally attended by protesters descending on the capital from dozens of states, Trump told cheering crowds that “we will never concede … You don’t concede when there’s theft.”
“I am from Detroit and I saw the fraud. The fraud is real, the evidence is overwhelming,” Ben Cushman of Michigan told dpa.
Leaders from around the world condemned the scenes of chaos in the United States, with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell saying they were “not America.”
Pence, whose role in the certification was largely ceremonial and involved reading out the vote results, had come under pressure from Trump to declare him the winner of the election. But he defied Trump, saying he could not claim “unilateral authority” to reject the electoral votes of states that Biden won.
