By LISA MASCARO
WASHINGTON — As Congress meets in the middle of a winter storm to certify the election of President-elect Donald Trump, the legacy of Jan. 6 looms over the proceedings with one extraordinary fact: The candidate who tried to overturn the previous election has won this time and rightfully returns to power. power.
Lawmakers will meet at noon Monday under the strictest possible level of national security. Layers of tall black fencing flank the U.S. Capitol complex, a stark reminder of what happened four years ago, when a defeated Trump sent his mob “to fight like hell” in what became the the most horrific attack on the seat of American democracy in 200 years. .
No violence, protests or even procedural objections to Congress are expected this time. Republicans at the highest levels of power who challenged the 2020 election results when Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden have no qualms this year after defeating Vice President Kamala Harris.
And Democrats, frustrated by Trump’s 312-226 Electoral College victory, nevertheless accept the choice of American voters. Even the snowstorm that is hitting the region should not interfere with January 6, the day set by law to certify the vote.
“Whether we’re in a snowstorm or not, we’ll be in this chamber to make sure this gets done,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican who helped lead Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, on Fox News Channel. .
Today’s return to an American tradition that kicks off the peaceful transfer of presidential power comes with an asterisk as Trump prepares to take office in two weeks with a revived sense of authority. He denies losing four years ago, plans to stay beyond the constitutional two-term limit in the White House and promises to pardon some of the more than 1,250 people who have pleaded guilty or been convicted of related crimes at the Capitol headquarters.
What is unclear is whether January 6, 2021, was the anomaly, the year Americans violently attacked their own government, or whether this year’s expected calm becomes the outlier. The United States struggles to come to terms with its political and cultural differences at a time when global democracy is under threat. Trump calls January 6, 2021 “the day of love.”
“We must not allow ourselves to be lulled into complacency,” said Ian Bassin, executive director of the interideological nonprofit Protect Democracy.
He and others warned that it was historically unprecedented for American voters to do what they did in November, re-electing Trump after he publicly refused to step down last time. Returning to power an emboldened leader who has demonstrated an unwillingness to give it up “is an unprecedentedly dangerous decision that a free country can make voluntarily,” Bassin said.
Biden, speaking at White House events on Sunday, called January 6, 2021, “one of the most difficult days in American history.”
“We must return to the basic and normal transfer of power,” the president said. What Trump did last time, Biden said, “was a real threat to democracy. I hope we’re past that now.
Yet American democracy has proven resilient, and Congress, the branch of government closest to the people, will come together to affirm Americans’ choice.
With pomp and tradition, the day was expected to unfold as it had countless times before, with the arrival of ceremonial mahogany boxes filled with state election certificates – boxes that staff frantically grabbed and secured when Trump’s mob stormed the building last time. .
The senators will walk through the Capitol — which four years ago was filled with roaming rioters, some defecating and calling menacingly at leaders, others engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police — to the House to begin certifying the vote.
Harris will preside over the counting, as is the case for the vice president, and certify his own defeat – much like Democrat Al Gore did in 2001 and Republican Richard Nixon in 1961.
She will stand on the dais where then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi was abruptly pulled to safety last time as crowds closed in and lawmakers sought to put on gas masks and flee, and Gunshots rang out as police killed Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter who tried to walk through a broken glass door into the bedroom.
New procedural rules were put in place following what happened four years ago, when Republicans, repeating Trump’s lie that the election was fraudulent, challenged the results certified by their own States.
Under changes to the election counting law, a fifth of lawmakers, instead of just one in each chamber, must now raise objections to election results. With security as tight as the Super Bowl or the Olympics, law enforcement is on high alert against intruders. No tourists will be allowed.
But none of this should be necessary.
Republicans, who met with Trump behind closed doors at the White House before January 6, 2021 to develop a complex plan to challenge his election defeat, this time accepted his victory.
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who led the challenge in the House in 2021, said people at the time were very surprised by the outcome of the election and that there were “a lot of complaints and of allegations.”
This time he said: “I think the victory was so decisive…. That snuffed out most of that.
Democrats, who have raised symbolic objections in the past, notably during the disputed 2000 election, which Gore lost to George W. Bush and ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, do not intend to object. . House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the Democratic Party is not “infested” by election denial.
“There are no election deniers on our side of the aisle,” Jeffries said on the first day of the new Congress, to applause from Democrats in the House.
“You see, you have to love America when you win and when you lose. It’s the patriotic thing to do,” Jeffries said.
Last time, far-right militias helped the mob break into the Capitol in a war zone-like scene. Officers described being run over, pepper sprayed and beaten with Trump flag poles, “slipping in other people’s blood.”
Leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys were convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Many others were sentenced to prison, probation, home confinement or other sanctions.
The Republicans who mounted the legal challenges to Trump’s defeat remain steadfast in their actions, celebrated in Trump circles, despite the serious consequences for their personal and professional livelihoods.
Several people, including disbarred attorneys Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman and the indicted but pardoned Michael Flynn, met this weekend at Trump’s private club, Mar-a-Lago Estate, for a film screening about the 2020 election .
Trump was impeached by the House for inciting insurrection that day, but was acquitted by the Senate. At the time, Republican Party Leader Mitch McConnell blamed Trump for the siege but said culpability rested with the courts.
Federal prosecutors later issued a four-count indictment against Trump for trying to overturn the election, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, but special counsel Jack Smith was forced to narrowing the case once the Supreme Court ruled that a president had broad immunity. for the measures taken in power.
Last month, Smith withdrew the case after Trump’s re-election, adhering to Justice Department guidelines that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted.
Biden, in one of his outgoing acts, awarded the Presidential Citizens’ Medal to Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who had served as president and vice president of the congressional committee which conducted an investigation on January 6, 2021.
Trump said those who worked on the January 6 committee should be incarcerated.
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Associated Press writers Fatima Hussein and Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.
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Originally published:
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