Late this morn­ing, while Con­gress was con­vened to con­sid­er (and reject) objec­tions to the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the Elec­toral Col­lege results in the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, right wing ter­ror­ists stormed the Unit­ed States Capi­tol build­ing, inter­rupt­ing the pro­ceed­ings and forc­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Sen­a­tors, and staff to evac­u­ate to secure areas and shel­ter in place while Capi­tol Police offi­cers strug­gled to evict the ter­ror­ists and reestab­lish build­ing security.

The insur­rec­tion began fol­low­ing a ral­ly held on the Nation­al Mall in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. to protest the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion results, at which Don­ald Trump urged par­tic­i­pants to go to, and enter, the Capi­tol building.

“We’re going to try and give our Repub­li­cans,” he said. “… the kind of pride and bold­ness that they need to take back our country.”

They did so, destroy­ing up to four lay­ers of pro­tec­tive fenc­ing and an addi­tion­al rushed-togeth­er fifth lay­er to replace torn sec­tions of the orig­i­nal fencing.

The House and Sen­ate cham­bers were evac­u­at­ed; some of the ter­ror­ists sub­se­quent­ly made onto the floor of each chamber.

Shots have report­ed­ly been fired on the House floor, while pho­tos and video have been post­ed of Trump fans roam­ing around the Sen­ate floor and occu­py­ing the dais, as well as con­gres­sion­al offices.

Sev­er­al Capi­tol Police offi­cers have been injured.

Before the worst of these events occurred, Trump tweet­ed:

“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to pro­tect our Coun­try and our Con­sti­tu­tion, giv­ing States a chance to cer­ti­fy a cor­rect­ed set of facts, not the fraud­u­lent or inac­cu­rate ones which they were asked to pre­vi­ous­ly cer­ti­fy. USA demands the truth!”

Tear gas has been released with­in the Capi­tol Rotun­da, though by who is not known at this point. Sev­er­al peo­ple mount­ed scaf­fold­ing out­side the Sen­ate potion of the Capi­tol build­ing, raised it to the sec­ond floor, pos­si­bly next to or where McConnell’s office is present­ly locat­ed, and start­ed bang­ing on windows.

The Capi­tol build­ing is present­ly in lockdown.

The May­or of Wash­ing­ton, D.C., Muriel Bows­er, has declared a city­wide cur­few for the Dis­trict of Colum­bia from 6 PM on Wednes­day, Jan­u­ary 6th, until 6 AM on Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 7th. Pri­vate res­i­dences on Capi­tol Hill have been evac­u­at­ed and fam­i­ly mem­bers tak­en to safe­ty by Capi­tol Police.

A bomb threat was declared and an actu­al bomb may have been dis­cov­ered the Capi­tol Hill Club. The offices at Can­non House Office Build­ing fac­ing the Capi­tol Hill Club and build­ings imme­di­ate­ly sur­round­ing the Club have been evac­u­at­ed. Vehi­cles have also been removed from the area.

The Depart­ment of Defense has report­ed­ly denied a request by Wash­ing­ton, D.C. offi­cials to deploy the Nation­al Guard to secure the Unit­ed States Capitol.

The indi­vid­u­als involved appear be in vio­la­tion of 18 U.S. Code § 2384:

If two or more per­sons in any State or Ter­ri­to­ry, or in any place sub­ject to the juris­dic­tion of the Unit­ed States, con­spire to over­throw, put down, or to destroy by force the Gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the author­i­ty there­of, or by force to pre­vent, hin­der, or delay the exe­cu­tion of any law of the Unit­ed States, or by force to seize, take, or pos­sess any prop­er­ty of the Unit­ed States con­trary to the author­i­ty there­of, they shall each be fined under this title or impris­oned not more than twen­ty years, or both.

Empha­sis is ours.

This sto­ry will be updat­ed.