Congress moves closes in on affirming Biden’s win

“Today, a shameful assault was made on our democracy. It was anointed at the highest level of government. It cannot, however, deter us from our responsibility to validate the election of Joe Biden,” wrote Pelosi (D-Calif.).

As lawmakers returned to work following the riot, the tone of the debate turned more somber and impassioned than before the interruption, with a number of Republicans who had planned to slow the proceedings with objections announcing they would stand aside.

“To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins. This is still the people’s house,” Pence said as he formally reopened the Senate.

Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the rioters had tried to disrupt democracy. “They failed,” he said.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) earned sustained applause from his colleagues for a thundering speech in which he said elected leaders should show respect for voters by telling them the truth, not fueling groundless doubts about the election.

“We gather due to a selfish man’s injured pride and the outrage of supporters who he has deliberately misinformed for the past two months and stirred to action this very morning,” Romney said. “What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the president of the United States.”

Both chambers picked up where they had left off before the evacuation, considering a challenge to Biden’s 11 electoral votes in Arizona. The Senate was the first to vote, rejecting the challenge by a 93-to-6 vote that forecast a similar failure of any subsequent challenges.

The House also rejected the challenge to Arizona’s results by a 303-to-121 vote. All the “no” votes were from Republicans, meaning a significant proportion of GOP House members favored the challenge.

Lawmakers planned to work through the night for as long as it took to dispose of the dissents.

The ceremonial reading of the electoral votes had just begun when pro-Trump rioters rushed the building at around 2 p.m., forcing the evacuation of both chambers of Congress. For hours, rioters rampaged through the Capitol complex. One woman was fatally shot in the building.

Only after the D.C. National Guard had been activated and political leaders in both parties condemned the rioting and appealed for calm did authorities declare the Capitol was secure.

The day had always been expected to be a historic test of the democratic system, with dozens of Republicans attempting for the first time to use Congress’s previously ceremonial role to try to overturn the results of a popular vote. The process was already underway when Jon Ossoff was declared the winner of one of two Senate runoffs in Georgia, handing control of the upper chamber to the Democrats for the next two years.

Still, the outcome of the congressional proceedings had been clear from the start, particularly after Pence announced he would reject pleas from the president to use his role as the session’s presiding officer to hand a win to Trump.

McConnell, who also had said little publicly about the process before Wednesday, likewise delivered a stirring opening floor speech imploring his colleagues not to damage democracy by objecting to the votes.

“Voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken — they’ve all spoken. If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever,” he said.

The tense day turned to chaos when pro-Trump rioters, stirred up at a rally where the president called for them to march on the Capitol, stormed the building and caused the proceedings to be halted for hours.

The violence shocked leaders in both parties. While lawmakers huddled in an undisclosed location during the siege, Republican leaders pressed their members to abandon their plans to challenge the electoral vote. Several senators said they would no longer object, notably Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), who had embraced the challenge as part of the hard-fought Senate election she lost Tuesday. “The events that have transpired today have forced me to reconsider,” she said.

Democrats and some outside groups began calling Wednesday for Trump to be either quickly impeached by Congress or removed from office via the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which guides the handling of an incapacitated president, in an effort to lessen his ability to incite more violence.

Several hours after his supporters had broken into the Capitol, Trump tweeted and released a video calling on them to respect law enforcement. But he also repeated lies about the election being stolen from him.

Late in the day, he tweeted that “these are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots.” The tweet was quickly removed by Twitter, which also for the first time announced that Trump’s account would be locked until he deleted the tweet and then for 12 hours. Facebook and Instagram quickly said they also would lock Trump out…