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Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Wednesday, January 6th, 2021

Trump’s fascist goons launch physical attack on democracy, storm United States Capitol

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.

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3 Pings

  1. […] the build­ing, prompt­ing the evac­u­a­tion of the House and Sen­ate floor cham­bers, as has been pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed here and […]

  2. […] the news of vic­to­ry was over­shad­owed by events in the nation’s cap­i­tal, as a vio­lent far-right mob over­ran the Capi­tol build­ing in an attempt to overturn […]

  3. […] Don­ald Trump and his most loy­al sur­ro­gates, includ­ing his chil­dren and Rudy Giu­liani, sent a vio­lent ter­ror­ist mob down Penn­syl­va­nia Avenue to attack the Unit­ed States Capi…, includ­ing Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence, the Pres­i­dent of the […]

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