A large group of police arrive at the Capitol, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022, in Washington. (AP)US Capitol riots anniversary LIVE updates: President Joe Biden on Thursday marked the first anniversary of the US Capitol insurrection, the violent attack by Trump supporters that raised global concerns about the future of American democracy. “I’m praying that we’ll never have another day like we had a year ago today,” Biden, who arrived early at the Capitol said.
According to AP, Biden and congressional Democrats started the morning in Statuary Hall, one of several spots where rioters swarmed a year ago and interrupted the electoral count.
Biden is set to draw a contrast between the truth of what happened and the false narratives that have sprung up about the Capitol assault, including the continued refusal by many Republicans to affirm that Biden won the 2020 election. He plans to highlight the ongoing threat facing the nation’s democracy by those who used or condoned the use of force to try to subvert the will of the people.
Four people died on the day of the riot, and one Capitol police officer died the day after defending Congress. Dozens of police were injured during the multi-hour onslaught by Trump supporters, and four officers have since taken their own lives.
A mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump fight with members of law enforcement at a door they broke open as they storm the US Capitol Building in Washington on Jan 6, 2021. (Reuters)
"One year ago, a violent attack on our Capitol made it clear just how fragile the American experiment in democracy really is. And while the broken windows have been repaired and many of the rioters have been brought to justice, the truth is that our democracy is at greater risk today than it was back then," former US president Barack Obama said in a statement.
"Although initially rejected by many Republicans, the claims that fanned the flames of violence on January 6th have since been embraced by a sizeable portion of voters and elected officials – many of whom know better," he added.
"I'm pleading with Republican voters, Republican people across the country: Do not follow the Big Lie. Your ideology doesn't have to be the same as ours. We can disagree respectfully, but we cannot follow a big lie," Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said.
"January 6th, 2021, was a dark day for Congress and our country. The United States Capitol, the seat of the first branch of our federal government, was stormed by criminals who brutalized police officers and used force to try to stop Congress from doing its job....," US Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell was quoted as saying by Reuters.
"As I said yesterday, it has been stunning to see some Washington Democrats try to exploit this anniversary to advance partisan policy goals that long predated this event. It is especially jaw-dropping to hear some Senate Democrats invoke the mob's attempt to disrupt our country's norms, rules, and institutions as a justification to discard our norms, rules, and institutions themselves," he added.
"One year ago today in this sacred place, democracy was attacked. Simply attacked. The will of the people was under assault. The Constitution, our Constitution, faced the gravest of threats," Biden said while addressing the nation from Capitol Hill. He also alleged that former president Donald Trump "did nothing for hours" when the Capitol was under siege.
President Joe Biden on Thursday accused his predecessor Donald Trump of posing a continuing threat to American democracy in a speech on the anniversary of the deadly US Capitol attack by Trump supporters who tried to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
Biden warned that Trump's false claims that the election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud could unravel the rule of law and undermine future elections.
"We must be absolutely clear about what is true and what is a lie. Here's the truth: A former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He's done so because he values power over principle," Biden was quoted as saying by Reuters.
President Joe Biden on Thursday marked the first anniversary of the US Capitol insurrection, the violent attack by Trump supporters that killed five people including a police officer last year. “I’m praying that we’ll never have another day like we had a year ago today,” Biden, who arrived early at the Capitol said.
President Biden delivers remarks to mark one year since the January 6 deadly assault on the Capitol.
US President Joe Biden will soon address the nation on the January 6 Capitol insurrection. "One year ago today, democracy was attacked. The will of the people was under assault. And our Constitution faced the gravest of threats. I’m heading to the Capitol this morning to speak about the day of insurrection, the state of American democracy, and where we go from here," a tweet from President Biden said.
A deeply divided Congress is about to show the world a very unsettled view from the US Capitol: Rather than a national crisis that pulls the country together, the deadly riot on Jan. 6, 2021, only seems to have pushed lawmakers further apart.
Some members are planning to mark the anniversary of the Capitol insurrection with a moment of silence.
Others will spend the day educating Americans on the workings of democracy.
And still others don’t think the deadliest domestic attack on Congress in the nation’s history needs to be remembered at all. Read the full report here.
Facing prison time, many Jan. 6 rioters admit they were wrong to enter the US Capitol and disavow political violence, despite what former President Donald Trump claims in spreading lies about the attack.
Some directly blame Trump for misleading them and warn Trump supporters not to trust him. Others remain defiant and allege they are victims of so-called cancel culture.
At least 170 rioters have pleaded guilty and more than 70 have been sentenced. One case was dismissed and two others closed after the people charged died. No one has been found not guilty. Read the full report here.
There were infamous white nationalists and noted conspiracy theorists who have spread dark visions of pedophile Satanists running the country. Others were more anonymous, people who had journeyed from Indiana and South Carolina to heed President Donald Trump’s call to show their support. One person, a West Virginia lawmaker, had only been elected to office in November.
All of them converged Wednesday on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, where hundreds of rioters crashed through barricades, climbed through windows and walked through doors, wandering around the hallways with a sense of gleeful desecration, because, for a few breathtaking hours, they believed that they had displaced the very elites they said they hated.
As Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday, the image of one protestor carrying the Confederate flag caught everyone’s attention. This was the first time that the Confederate flag had appeared inside the halls of the Capitol.
The image is significant because of what the flag stands for –– white supremacy and the social and political exclusion of coloured people.
The Confederate flag originated during the Civil War of 1861. But it emerged as a political symbol only in the 20th century in context of writing a new narrative remembering the war.
As people around the world watched the clash on Wednesday between a mob of US President Donald Trump’s supporters and law-enforcement authorities at the Capitol building, the Indian Tricolour could be seen fluttering in a sea of US flags.
The flag-bearer was 54-year-old Virginia-based entrepreneur Vincent Xavier Palanthigal, who moved to the US from Kochi in Kerala in 1992 and is a member of the Virginia Republican Party’s State Central Committee.
“It was because of my patriotic fervour and love that I took the Indian flag. Not to defame it or give it a bad name,” he told The Indian Express.
A ceremonial session of Congress to formally declare President-elect Joe Biden’s victory devolved in an instant into a scene of violence and mayhem in the Capitol on Wednesday when a pro-Trump mob stormed the building, halting the counting of electoral votes.
Journalists from The New York Times witnessed the scene. Here is how the chaos unfolded:
Not long after Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader, warned his Republican colleagues that their efforts to overturn a U.S. election would send its democracy into a “death spiral,” fear surged through the Senate chamber.
A large group of pro-Trump protesters broke through barricades breached the building, and police whisked Vice President Mike Pence off the dais and out of the chamber, as the shouts of the mob could be heard outside the door.
President Joe Biden is preparing to mark the first anniversary of the US Capitol insurrection, gathering with lawmakers to remember the violent attack that has fundamentally changed the Congress and raised global concerns about the future of American democracy.
Marking the one-year anniversary of the Capitol insurrection, Biden and congressional Democrats will start Thursday in Statuary Hall, one of several spots where rioters swarmed a year ago and interrupted the electoral count.
Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the storming of the US Capitol, Twitter Inc created a new team to review the social networking site for harmful content associated with the event, the company told Reuters on Tuesday.
Social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook were accused of enabling extremists to organize the siege on Jan 6, 2021, when supporters of Republican then-President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol to block Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden's presidential election victory.
Twitter said it "convened a cross-functional working group" comprised of members across its site integrity and trust and safety teams, which is specific to the anniversary of the attack on the Capitol and will watch for risks such as tweets and accounts that incite violence. The company did not say how many people were on the monitoring team. (Reuters)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a singular message for Americans and the world on the eve of the anniversary of the horrific attack on the Capitol: "Democracy won.''
In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, inside the Capitol where a mob loyal to Donald Trump had laid siege, Pelosi said it's time for the country to turn to its "better angels,'' draw from history and ensure a day like Jan 6 never happens again.
"Make no mistake, our democracy was on the brink of catastrophe," Pelosi told the AP. "Democracy won that night," she said. "These people, because of the courageous work of the Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police and others, they were deterred in their action to stop the peaceful transfer of power. They lost.'' (AP)
A year after the Jan 6 Capitol attack, the new chief of the US Capitol Police said Wednesday he is making progress in resolving "critical deficiencies" despite major staffing shortages and thousands of new threats to members of Congress.
"We're going to get tested again" and will be prepared, declared Chief J Thomas Manger.
Changes include improving the agency's ability to gather, analyse and share intelligence with other federal and state law enforcement forces, Manger said. That failing contributed to a lack of defensive forces at the violent Capitol insurrection as rioters fought past outmanned police, leaving more than 100 of them injured. (AP)
Long after most other lawmakers had been rushed to safety, they were on the hard marble floor, ducking for cover.
Trapped in the gallery of the House, occupying balcony seats off-limits to the public because of COVID-19, roughly three dozen House Democrats were the last ones to leave the chamber on Jan. 6, bearing witness as the certification of a presidential election gave way to a violent insurrection.
As danger neared, and as the rioters were trying to break down the doors, they called their families. They scrambled for makeshift weapons and mentally prepared themselves to fight. Many thought they might die. Read the full report here.
January 6 will mark a year since the deadly siege of the US Capitol by a partially-armed and whimsically-dressed mob made of supporters of then-President Donald Trump. The attack on the Capitol — a complex that is widely seen as a symbol of American democracy — was unprecedented. The only other forcible breach had occurred more than 200 years earlier when British troops set fire to it in August 1814. That the January 6 assault was perpetrated by flag-waving patriots instigated by a sitting president making false claims of a stolen election — and refusing to acknowledge his electoral defeat — only underscores the political danger it portends. Accepting electoral defeat is, after all, fundamental to the functioning of any democracy. Click here to read more.