Like everyone else, I was stunned by the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6. I followed the proceedings from the start to see what stunt Trump might pull. I watched as the mob approached and stormed the Capitol, where Electoral votes were being counted. What happened was a violent desecration of the Constitutionally prescribed process for transferring power from one president to the next. It was an attack on our government and our Constitution. The ceremony is typically dry as dust, and no one watches it.
This time there was an air of anticipation because some 140 Republican members of the House and at least 13 Senators had announced that they would oppose certification of Biden’s victory unless there was an “audit” of the states that Trump thinks he should have won, despite multiple recounts and 60 failures in state and federal courts and two rejections by the United States Supreme Court. Not a single court agreed with Trump’s claims of election fraud. (Remember that Trump said on the famous phone call with Georgia election officials that he couldn’t possibly have lost Georgia; not only did he lose it on November 3, he lost it again in the Senatorial elections of January 5.)
I have visited the Capitol many times for meetings with members of Congress. I always thought security was CONTINUE READING: The Trump Insurrection of 2021 | Diane Ravitch's blog