National: State capitals come under siege by pro-Trump mobs | Reid Wilson/The Hill

Protests at state capitals across the country turned threatening Wednesday as demonstrators entered legislative buildings and police escorted elected officials from their offices in response to violent threats. The protests against the November presidential election results, fueled in large part by unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud that were repeated often by President Trump and the White House, coincided with mob violence in the nation’s capital where Trump supporters overran U.S. Capitol Police and officers drew their firearms to protect lawmakers in the House and Senate. In state capitals, police moved to protect elected officials who were threatened by pro-Trump mobs. Staffers at the Utah state Capitol were ordered to evacuate the building, wrote Bryan Schott, who covers the legislature for the Salt Lake Tribune. In Georgia, police escorted Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to safety as militia members gathered outside the Capitol building in Atlanta. In Olympia, the perimeter of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s (D) mansion was breached by a large group of pro-Trump protesters. Inslee was home at the time, according to public radio reporter Austin Jenkins. The governor and his wife have been moved to a safe location. Protesters at a rally in Salem burned Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) in effigy, as city police urged people to avoid the area around the statehouse. Fistfights broke out in Sacramento, where police struggled to contain clashes between dueling groups of demonstrators. In Kansas, state police monitored a group of protesters who entered the statehouse in Topeka. The state Highway Patrol said they had no plans to increase security, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal. The protesters later dispersed without incident.

Full Article: State capitals come under siege by pro-Trump mobs | TheHill

National: Kid gloves for pro-Trump mob as Black Lives Matter face strongarm tactics | Robert Klemko, Kimberly Kindy, Kim Bellware and Derek Hawkins/The Washington Post

When Chanelle Helm helped organize protests after the March 13 killing of Breonna Taylor, Louisville police responded with batons, stun grenades and tear gas. The 40-year-old Black Lives Matter activist still bears scars from rubber bullets fired at close range. So Helm was startled and frustrated Wednesday to see a White, pro-Trump mob storm the U.S. Capitol — breaking down barricades, smashing windows and striking police officers — without obvious consequence. “Our activists are still to this day met with hyper-police violence,” Helm said. “And today you see this full-on riot — literally a coup — with people toting guns, which the police knew was coming and they just let it happen. I don’t understand where the ‘law and order’ is. This is what white supremacy looks like.” Helm and other activists across the country who spent much of 2020 facing off with law enforcement officers while protesting police brutality and racial inequality watched with a mixture of outrage and validation as the president’s supporters stormed the Capitol building during sessions of the House and Senate.

Full Article: Kid gloves for pro-Trump mob as Black Lives Matter face strongarm tactics – The Washington Post

National: Protesters swarm Statehouses across US; some evacuated | Morgan Lee and Ben Nadler/Associated Press

Protesters backing President Donald Trump massed outside statehouses from Georgia to New Mexico on Wednesday, leading some officials to evacuate while cheers rang out at several demonstrations as a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol. Hundreds of people gathered in state capitals nationwide to oppose President-elect Joe Biden’s win, waving signs saying “Stop the steal” and “Four more years.” Most of them didn’t wear masks amid the coronavirus pandemic, and some carried guns in places like Oklahoma, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and Washington state. There were some scuffles in states like Ohio and California, with some instances of journalists or counterprotesters being pepper-sprayed or punched, but most demonstrations were peaceful — some of them quite small — and only a few arrests were reported. New Mexico police evacuated staff as a precaution from a Statehouse building that includes the governor’s office and the secretary of state’s office, shortly after hundreds of flag-waving supporters arrived in a vehicle caravan and on horseback. Demonstrators sang “God Bless America,” honked horns and wrongly announced on a megaphone that Trump was the rightful election winner — though Biden won the vote in New Mexico by a margin of roughly 11%. “It’s the first time in the history of the United States that the peaceful transfer of power has been slowed by an act of violence,¨ Democratic House Speaker Brian Egolf said. “It is a shameful moment, and I hope that the Congress can recover soon.” Violent protests in Washington, D.C., came as Congress tried to affirm Biden’s Electoral College victory. News that protesters had breached the U.S. Capitol set off cheers at pro-Trump protests in Minnesota, Nevada and Arizona, where armed protesters marched at the Capitol in Phoenix and several men displayed a guillotine.

Full Article: Protesters swarm Statehouses across US; some evacuated

National: A harrowing photo shows a Trump supporter carrying a Confederate flag inside the US Capitol, flanked by portraits of Civil War-era figures | Aria Bendix/Business Insider

As rioters stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday, a photographer named Saul Loeb managed to encapsulate the siege’s dark historical context in a single image. His photo shows a man waving a Confederate battle flag in front of two portraits of Civil War-era figures in the Capitol Rotunda. To the man’s right is a portrait of Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts senator who protested slavery. To his left is a portrait of John C. Calhoun, the seventh US vice president, who was a staunch defender of slavery and heavily influenced the ideology that ultimately led to the South’s secession. The proximity of the two portraits calls to mind the fractured nature of US civil society in the 1860s — and the recent cleft that has widened in the lead-up and response to the 2020 election. “What I find fascinating about that juxtaposition is its connections to violence, because of course [Sumner] was a victim of violence in the Capitol when he was attacked for having had made a speech critical of slavery,” Judith Giesberg, a Civil War historian at Villanova University, told Business Insider. “What that image should remind us of is that there’s a history of having violent political confrontations in Congress.”

Full Article: Historian analyzes photo of rioter with Confederate flag in US Capitol – Business Insider

National: ‘Be There. Will Be Wild!’: Trump All but Circled the Date | Dan Barry and Sheera Frenkel/The New York Times

For weeks, President Trump and his supporters had been proclaiming Jan. 6, 2021, as a day of reckoning. A day to gather in Washington to “save America” and “stop the steal” of the election he had decisively lost, but which he still maintained — often through a toxic brew of conspiracy theories — that he had won by a landslide. And when that day came, the president rallied thousands of his supporters with an incendiary speech. Then a large mob of those supporters, many waving Trump flags and wearing Trump regalia, violently stormed the Capitol to take over the halls of government and send elected officials into hiding, fearing for their safety. But if the chaos in the Capitol shocked the country, one of the most disturbing aspects of this most disturbing day was that it could be seen coming. The president himself had all but circled it on the nation’s calendar. “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Mr. Trump tweeted on Dec. 19, just one of several of his tweets promoting the day. “Be there, will be wild!” And his supporters took the president at his word. “If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism,” a member of the Red-State Secession group on Facebook posted on Tuesday, the eve of the appointed day, Jan. 6. Beneath it, dozens of people posted comments that included photographs of the weaponry — including assault rifles — that they said they planned to bring to the rally. There were also comments referring to “occupying” the Capitol and forcing Congress to overturn the November election that Joseph R. Biden Jr. had won — and Mr. Trump had lost.

Full Article: ‘Be There. Will Be Wild!’: Trump All but Circled the Date – The New York Times

‘Trump blows up US democracy’: the world watches on in horror | Tom Phillips and Helen Sullivan/The Guardian

World leaders have reacted with horror to the chaos that has consumed Washington, describing the insurrectionist attempt on the US Capitol building as “disgraceful”, “pitiful”, and “shocking”. Prime ministers and presidents around the world have urged US president Donald Trump and his supporters to accept the result of November’s presidential election and accede to a peaceful transition of power. President-elect Joe Biden’s administration is set to be inaugurated in 14 days. “Inflammatory words turn into violent acts – on the steps of the Reichstag, and now in the #Capitol,” Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, tweeted, as Trump loyalists led a violent assault on the heart of the American republic. Maas urged Trump and his supporters to “finally accept the decision of the American voters and stop trampling democracy”. “The outcome of this democratic election must be respected,” Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general and former Norwegian prime minister, tweeted on Wednesday evening after US president-elect Joe Biden condemned “this godawful display” and warned: “The world is watching”.

Full Article: ‘Trump blows up US democracy’: the world watches on in horror | US news | The Guardian

Editorial: The Far-Right Told Us What It Had Planned. We Didn’t Listen. | Seyward Darby/The New York Times

A woman was killed in the riot on Wednesday — shot in the Capitol by a police officer. Her death shouldn’t have happened, and it should now be investigated, no question. What’s frightening, however, is that many Trump supporters are already heralding her as a martyr. “Say her name” advocates of Wednesday’s coup attempt have tweeted, co-opting the language of the Black Lives Matter movement. A dead or injured white woman — even the illusion of one — has always been a powerful symbol on the far right, a rallying cry for people to stand up and act to preserve their contorted notions of honor, liberty and purity. Consider the apocryphal stories of sexual violence that led to countless lynchings. Or of Ruby Ridge in Idaho, in 1992, when federal agents killed an unarmed white woman during a botched raid: “When the Feds blew the head off Vicki Weaver I think symbolically that was their war against the American woman, the American mother, the American white wife,” an acolyte of the far right, a pastor, said at the time. “This is the opening shot of a second American Revolution.” Right-wing activists have been citing Mrs. Weaver’s death ever since as evidence that they stand for what is good and right: family and freedom. How will they twist the death on Wednesday now, even if the mob brought the violence to the state, and not the other way around? We can’t remedy the past errors that brought us here, but we can avoid new ones, starting by rejecting the assumption that Wednesday’s events won’t lead to something worse. Just because a coup attempt fails doesn’t mean the next one will. History holds important lessons, if only we are willing to hear them. This moment — men and women breaching the Capitol’s barricades, entering the chambers of Congress and demanding the nullification of the presidential election based on nothing more than lies and conspiracy theories — is a culmination, but it is not an ending. It is not, as some pundits have suggested, white supremacy or Trumpism’s “last gasp.” It is the manifestation of a long-held right-wing fantasy. Opponents of democracy stormed the nation’s seat of power. They walked out, many unscathed and uncuffed, to fight another day.

Full Article: Opinion | The Far-Right Told Us What It Had Planned. We Didn’t Listen. – The New York Times

Editorial: Trump caused the assault on the Capitol. He must be removed. | The Washington Post

President Trump’s refusal to accept his election defeat and his relentless incitement of his supporters led Wednesday to the unthinkable: an assault on the U.S. Capitol by a violent mob that overwhelmed police and drove Congress from its chambers as it was debating the counting of electoral votes. Responsibility for this act of sedition lies squarely with the president, who has shown that his continued tenure in office poses a grave threat to U.S. democracy. He should be removed. Mr. Trump encouraged the mob to gather on Wednesday, as Congress was set to convene, and to “be wild.” After repeating a panoply of absurd conspiracy theories about the election, he urged the crowd to march on the Capitol. “We’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you,” he said. “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.” The president did not follow the mob, but instead passively watched it on television as its members tore down fences around the Capitol and overwhelmed police guarding the building. House members and senators were forced to flee. Shots were fired, and at least one person was struck and killed. Rather than immediately denouncing the violence and calling on his supporters to stand down, Mr. Trump issued two mild tweets in which he called on them to “remain” or “stay” peaceful. Following appeals from senior Republicans, he finally released a video in which he asked people to go home, but doubled down on the lies fueling the vigilantes. “We love you. You’re very special,” he told his seditious posse. Later, he excused the riot, tweeting that “these are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away.”

Full Article: Opinion | Trump caused the assault on the Capitol. He must be removed. – The Washington Post

Editorial: Impeach and Convict. Right Now. Trump is too dangerous to leave in office for even another minute. | Bret Stephens/The New York Times

It wasn’t hard to see, when it began, that it would end exactly the way it has. Donald Trump is America’s willful arsonist, the man who lit the match under the fabric of our constitutional republic. The duty of the House of Representatives and the Senate, once they certify Joe Biden’s election, is to reconvene, Wednesday night if possible, to impeach the president and then remove him from office and bar him from ever holding office again. To allow Trump to serve out his term, however brief it may be, puts the nation’s safety at risk, leaves our reputation as a democracy in tatters and evades the inescapable truth that the assault on Congress was an act of violent sedition aided and abetted by a lawless, immoral and terrifying president. From the moment Trump became the G.O.P. front-runner in 2015, it was obvious who he was and where, if given the chance, he would take America. He was a malignant narcissist in his person. A fraudster in his businesses. A bully in his relationships. And a demagogue in his politics. He did not have ideas. He had bigotries. He did not have a coalition. He had crowds. He did not have character. He had a quality of confident shamelessness, the kind that offered his followers permission to be shameless, too.

Full Article: Opinion | Impeach and Convict. Right Now. – The New York Times

Georgia: Fulton County delays counting final ballots due to security concerns | Ben Brasch/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Fulton County’s adjudication process – and also a final tally of votes – has been postponed due to safety concerns, Fulton spokeswoman Jessica Corbitt said Wednesday afternoon. “We have a strong basis for concern based on security threats over recent weeks as well as awareness that there are people, including the President himself, who have singled out Fulton County as a cause for the outcome of the Presidential election,” Corbitt said. Among the concerns is a call in which Trump tried to convince Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn the statewide election results. Fulton — home to a tenth of all Georgians — was mentioned by name 16 times during the Saturday call. County officials have rebuked the insinuations. Corbitt said Fulton has received bomb threats and “endless comments” on social media alleging they committed fraud – which has been disproven.

Full Article: Georgia Senate runoff: Fulton County delays counting final ballots due to security concerns

Georgia: Militia members gather outside the Capitol as pro-Trump rioters storm Washington DC | Gustaf Kilander/The Independent

Militia members gathered around the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta, as Pro-Trump rioters in DC attempted to take matters into their own hands and prevent Congress from certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college win by storming the US Capitol. Capitol Police escorted Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger and his staff out of the building, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Supporters of Donald Trump attempted to enter the building to deliver “written grievances” about Mr Trump’s November loss. Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said: “We heard reports of threats and left immediately.” Mr Fuchs told ABC News that the people gathering at the parking deck at the Capitol were members of a militia.

Full Article: Militia members gather outside the Georgia Capitol as pro-Trump rioters storm Washington DC | The Independent

Louisiana: Legislators want look at Dominion contract, voting machine bids | Zach Parker/The Ouachita Citizen

State lawmakers say they plan to scrutinize the state’s process of seeking proposals from electronic voting machine vendors like Dominion Voting Systems before bids are let sometime this year. After the presidential election in November, the Denver, Colorado-based company Dominion drew the ire of President Donald Trump and others, who alleged the company’s voting software and voting machines were used to switch millions of votes from Trump to the Democrat nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden. The state Senate Committee on Senate and Governmental Affairs was scheduled to discuss which voting machine hardware the state would utilize in future elections during its meeting Tuesday. That agenda item, however, was rescheduled because someone in Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin’s office had tested positive for COVID-19. The Secretary of State’s office administers elections in Louisiana. “The Secretary’s office has been talking about needing to replace our aging voting machines,” said state Sen. Sharon Hewitt, R-Slidell. “They are embarking on a process to do that. I want this committee to have some oversight in that process.” Hewitt chairs the Senate and Governmental Affairs committee. According to Hewitt, she wanted the committee to address how bids would be awarded to companies seeking to provide voting machines and software to the state.

Full Article: Legislators want look at Dominion contract, voting machine bids | Local/State Headlines | hannapub.com

Michigan lawmakers hunkered down as rioters breached US Capitol | Todd Spangler and Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

As an unprecedented confrontation at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday devolved the finalizing of the Nov. 3 election for President-elect Joe Biden into chaos, members of Congress, including those from Michigan, hunkered down in offices, sheltered in place and were moved to undisclosed locations as President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building. With shots being fired and tear gas being released in the halls of Congress, the Electoral College count was suspended at least temporarily as the National Guard was called in, a 6 p.m. curfew was imposed in Washington D.C. and members of the U.S. House and Senate voiced disbelief at the violent turn of events. “There was shooting at the doors and they evacuated all of us to an undisclosed location,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, who was on the floor of the U.S. House when protesters overwhelmed Capitol Police and swarmed the building. “Is this America?” she asked, clearly shaken. “Is this the country we believe in?” “They tried to lock us in to keep us safe,” she added, “but that ended when people started pounding on the doors. We heard them shooting at the doors. People are in hand-to-hand combat in the Capitol.”

Full Article: Michigan lawmakers hunkered down as rioters breached US Capitol

Michigan: Trump repeated lies about election before pro-Trump supporters stormed Capitol | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

Hours before pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building, forcing lawmakers convening to certify the Electoral College votes to seek safety, President Donald Trump gave a speech repeating lies that he won the election and unleashed a litany of debunked claims about Michigan’s election, which President-elect Joe Biden won by more than 154,000 votes. After the riots broke out, Trump waited two hours to press for calm. In a tweet, Trump told his supporters to “stay peaceful” but did not condemn the actions by his supporters. In a video released an hour before a 6 p.m. curfew in Washington, D.C., Trump continued to press baseless claims of election fraud, repeating the false claim that the election was stolen from him. Trump opened his video by saying, “I know your pain. I know your hurt. But you have to go home now.” He also went on to call his supporters “very special,” and said, “We can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special.”

Full Article: Trump’s false claims about Michigan election followed by violence

North Carolina: ‘The President bears responsibility’ for Capitol riot, GOP Senator Burr says | Lucille Sherman and Brian Murphy/Raleigh News & Observer

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina said President Donald Trump “bears responsibility” for Wednesday’s Capitol riots by “promoting the unfounded conspiracy theories that have led to this point.” Burr issued a statement about 7 p.m. Wednesday, hours after the U.S. House and Senate were evacuated as rioters who support Trump broke into the Capitol, interrupting the planned certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory. One woman was fatally shot, but details about who shot her have not been released, The New York Times reports. Burr, a Republican, called the day’s events an “attack” on our democracy. “Let me be clear: these actions are not a defense of this country, but an attack on it,” Burr said in a statement. “It is past time to accept the will of American voters and to allow our nation to move forward.” Burr and Sen. Thom Tillis voted not to accept the objection to Arizona’s electoral votes on Wednesday night. The objection was defeated 93-6 in the Senate and 303-121 in the House, meaning the votes from the state will be counted. Both chambers were debating the certification of Arizona’s election results when the Capitol building was breached by rioters who smashed glass and broke through locked doors. At least one reached the Senate floor and sat in the same seat occupied minutes earlier by Vice President Mike Pence. The House and Senate resumed the certification process Wednesday night after the Capitol was cleared and bomb-sniffing dogs had inspected it.

Full Article: NC Congress members react to Capitol riot, Burr blames Trump | Raleigh News & Observer

Pennsylvania: This Is What Regime Change Feels Like | Richard Primus/Politico

One day before a political mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, a less violent breach of norms dominated the day in a different capitol building, a hundred miles away. In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, during the ceremonial swearing-in of recently elected state senators, the chamber’s Republican majority refused to seat a Democratic colleague because his Republican opponent was still trying to challenge his certified election win in court. When the chamber’s presiding officer—Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, also a Democrat—declared that motion out of order, the Republicans voted to remove him and hand parliamentary control to the Senate’s senior Republican, essentially taking control of the chamber. Commentators described the events as ominous: a legislative majority using its brute power to deny the choice of the actual voters of Pennsylvania’s 45th District—who, as of today, still have no state senator. The Harrisburg power play lacked the dramatic violence of the assault on the U.S. Capitol one day later, but it was shocking in its own way, not least because the people breaking the norms were elected legislators and not a mob of outsiders. As unusual as it seemed, however, it wasn’t entirely unprecedented. The Pennsylvania Statehouse had seen something like it before, more than 200 years ago. And although the eighteenth-century incident that this week’s Harrisburg antics evoke might seem like a humorous historical anecdote now, it also shows why conduct of the kind that occurred in the Pennsylvania Senate this week is genuine cause for worry—and more related than it might seem to the mob scene in Washington one day later. The year was 1787, and the issue was whether to ratify the new U.S. Constitution. Congress had sent the proposed new Constitution to the state legislatures and asked them to hold ratifying conventions. In Pennsylvania, a small majority in the Legislature favored the new Constitution. But the sizable minority opposed to it was determined to prevent the state from ratifying. Lacking the votes to defeat a resolution calling a ratifying convention, the minority members decided simply to prevent any legislative business at all. Rather than accept a loss, they refused to show up to the chamber, denying the majority the quorum necessary to do business.

Full Article: This Is What Regime Change Feels Like – POLITICO

Pennsylvania Governor Wolf calls Republicans’ election claims ‘shameful’ lies for political gain | Charles Thompson/PennLive

Gov. Tom Wolf put Pennsylvania’s Republican Congressmen who plan to support objections to the 2020 presidential election results on full blast Wednesday, accusing them of being willing participants in perpetuating what he called a “shameful” lie for personal political gain. Eight of the state’s U.S. House members have affirmed their intent to support objections to the final certification of electoral votes in Congress today. Wolf, noting all of the objecting Pennsylvanians were elected to new terms in the very same election, called their actions shameful. “They could not have taken their own seats in in Congress in good conscience if they truly believed the election results were inaccurate, which just leaves one possibility: That they are purposely spreading disinformation about our elections for personal political gain,” Wolf said. “That’s shameful, and that’s destructive, and I cannot let it stand unchallenged. “The problem is these folks are not telling the truth, because it’s a fact. Pennsylvania had a fair and free election. It’s a fact that there was no fraud or illegal activity in Pennsylvania. It’s a fact, that (President-elect) Joe Biden won the presidency, and to be clear, it wasn’t even close.” The Democratic governor’s comments came during a mid-day press conference in which he, his Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and Philadelphia commissioner Al Schmidt offered full-throated defenses of Pennsylvania’s balloting and counting.

Full Article: Gov. Wolf calls Republicans’ Pa. election claims ‘shameful’ lies for political gain – pennlive.com

Tennessee: ‘A dark day for America’: State lawmakers condemn rioters storming US Capitol | Yue Stella Yu and Natalie Allison/Nashville Tennessean

Tennessee’s congressional delegation condemned the mob of Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, bringing a joint session of Congress to a halt and forcing lawmakers and staff into lockdown. Most of Tennessee’s Republican delegation began the day vowing to support President Donald Trump’s futile efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, saying they would not certify several states’ Electoral College votes. U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn on Wednesday morning tweeted that “lots of Tennesseans” had traveled to the nation’s Capitol to support Trump. But after rioters breached the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday afternoon, the lawmaker’s tenor changed. After years of encouraging Trump supporters and repeating his false statements, Tennessee’s two U.S. Senators used social media to say they disapproved of the rioting. “You are disrupting the democratic process,” Blackburn tweeted after rioters breached the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday afternoon. “You should be ashamed of yourself. This is violence. This is a crime. It must stop.” Newly sworn-in U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty, who replaced former U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, also condemned the violence on Wednesday. “What is happening at the U.S. Capitol right now is not peaceful, this is violence,” Hagerty said on Twitter. “I condemn it in the strongest terms. We are a nation of laws and this must stop.”

Full Article: Protest at U.S. Capitol: Tennessee delegates on lockdown, riots

Utah: Protesters outside the Capitol in Salt Lake City prompt the building to be evacuated | Taylor Stevens , Bryan Schott , Bethany Rodgers and Sara Tabin/Salt Lake Tribune

About 400 pro-Trump demonstrators turned up on Utah’s Capitol Hill on Wednesday to show their continued loyalty to the White House occupant who so far as refused to accept his reelection defeat. The protest in Salt Lake City was one of more than a dozen at state Capitols around the nation, according to news reports. But…

National: After years of fealty, Pence prepares for a final performance likely to anger Trump | Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey/The Washington Post

Vice President Pence and his team have huddled for hours with the Senate parliamentarian. They have studied historical examples of other vice presidents who have presided over election results. And they have begun anticipating the ire of President Trump — likely to come in the form of angry tweets — in the aftermath of Wednesday’s certification of the electoral college vote count before a joint session of Congress. The role of Pence, who will preside over the certification, is largely ceremonial, one of the few official duties of the vice president in his capacity as president of the Senate. But Trump’s continued and baseless insistence that he won the 2020 presidential election has thrust Pence into a vise between the Constitution he swore to uphold and the president he has promised his fealty. Pence’s performance Wednesday in the Senate chamber will serve as a fitting coda for a vice president who — through a combination of deference, obsequiousness and studied self-effacement — has made navigating the whims and loyalty requirements of his mercurial boss a full-time pursuit. Pence’s team views the vice president’s role as procedural and limited, not unlike an umpire calling balls and strikes but ultimately hemmed in by the rules of the game. Trump, meanwhile, has expressed a desire for Pence to use Wednesday’s session to overturn the election results and snatch victory from President-elect Joe Biden — a stunning subversion of democracy that Pence has no authority to carry out, even if he so desired.

Full Article: After years of fealty, Pence prepares for a final performance likely to anger Trump – The Washington Post

Editorial: Never Forget the Names of These Republicans Attempting a Coup | Thomas L. Friedman/The New York Times

The New Testament asks us in Mark 8:36: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, but lose his soul?” Senators Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson and all their fellow G.O.P. coup plotters clearly have forgotten that verse — if they ever knew it — for they are ready to sacrifice their souls, the soul of their party and the soul of America — our tradition of free and fair elections as the means for peacefully transferring power — so that Donald Trump can remain president and one of these sleazebags can eventually replace him. The governing “philosophy” of these unprincipled Trump-cult Republicans is unmistakably clear: “Democracy is fine for us as long as it is a mechanism for us to be in control. If we can’t hold power, then to hell with rules and to hell with the system. Power doesn’t flow from the will of the people — it flows from our will and our leader’s will.” For America to be healthy again, decent Republicans — in office and in business — need to break away from this unprincipled Trump-cult G.O.P. and start their own principled conservative party. It is urgent. Even if only a small group of principled, center-right lawmakers — and the business leaders who fund them — broke away and formed their own conservative coalition, they would become hugely influential in today’s closely divided Senate. They could be a critical swing faction helping to decide which Biden legislation passes, is moderated or fails.

Full Article: Opinion | Never Forget the Names of These Republicans Attempting a Coup – The New York Times

National: Trump Says Pence Can Overturn His Loss in Congress. That’s Not How It Works. | Michael S. Schmidt/The New York Times

President Trump on Tuesday escalated his efforts to force Vice President Mike Pence to overturn President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory, falsely asserting that Mr. Pence had the power to unilaterally throw out electoral votes on Wednesday when Congress meets to certify the election results. But there is nothing in the Constitution or the law that explicitly gives a vice president that power, and aides close to Mr. Pence, who concede that he is facing a politically perilous moment, are convinced he will follow the normal procedures and confirm Mr. Biden’s election. Still, most agree that Wednesday promises to be a long and confusing day on Capitol Hill — and a potentially agonizing one for Mr. Pence — as Mr. Trump’s Republican allies move to challenge Mr. Biden’s victory and force at least three votes on the matter, all expected to fail. The proceeding will test what had long been considered little more than a paperwork exercise in American democracy: the official count by Congress of electoral votes. The vice president’s role is to be the master of ceremonies rather than arbiter of the outcome, declaring the winner based on who has the most electoral votes. But despite Mr. Trump’s clear loss to Mr. Biden, the president and a group of loyalist House and Senate Republicans are plotting to upend the process by objecting to the certification of several states. Lacking the votes to prevail, Mr. Trump is now pressuring Mr. Pence to take matters into his own hands to delay the vote tabulation or alter it in Mr. Trump’s favor.

Full Article: Trump Pressures Pence to Reject Electoral Votes – The New York Times

National: Trump leans harder on Pence to flip election results, even though he lacks that power | Shannon Pettypiece, Monica Alba, Alex Moe and Kristen Welker/NBC

President Donald Trump turned up the pressure Tuesday to enlist Vice President Mike Pence in a futile effort to reverse the presidential election and keep them in office for four more years. With a president who has excelled at remaining the focus of Washington, Pence has largely played the role of quiet support character, never publicly rebuking his boss and sticking to his script with unwavering consistency. But Trump’s effort to keep from being evicted from the White House on Jan. 20 has pushed Pence into the limelight and left him in a position that a person close to Trump said he is “dreading.” Pence has a constitutional role in officially making President-elect Joe Biden the commander-in-chief. On Wednesday, he will be responsible for overseeing Congress’ count of the Electoral College votes submitted by the states. A group of Republican lawmakers have announced that they plan to object, although they are unlikely to succeed in throwing out the Biden votes.

Full Article: Trump leans harder on Pence to flip election results, even though he lacks that power

National: Pence Said to Have Told Trump He Lacks Power to Change Election Result | Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni/The New York Times

Vice President Mike Pence told President Trump on Tuesday that he did not believe he had the power to block congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the presidential election despite Mr. Trump’s baseless insistence that he did, people briefed on the conversation said. Mr. Pence’s message, delivered during his weekly lunch with…

National: With brazen assault on election, Trump prompts critics to warn of a coup | David Nakamura/The Washington Post

During four years in office, President Trump has trampled political norms, attacked democratic institutions, sought to discredit government agencies, peddled baseless conspiracy theories and been impeached by the House. Since his defeat in the November election, Trump’s critics have warned that his scorched-earth effort to invalidate the outcome amounts to a new level of danger: the first attempted coup d’etat in U.S. history to illegally maintain power. The chorus of alarm grew this week after the disclosure that Trump bullied and threatened Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in an hour-long private phone call Saturday, during which the president demanded that Raffensperger find thousands of votes for Trump that do not exist. On social media, conservative and liberal pundits alike used the word “coup.” So did former George W. Bush aide Nicolle Wallace, Trump biographer Timothy L. O’Brien, political analyst Larry Sabato and Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess grandmaster and founder of the Renew Democracy Initiative. The Atlantic, the New Yorker, the Nation, Vanity Fair, New York magazine and the BBC have invoked the term to explore the ramifications of Trump’s assault on the nation’s democratic foundations.

Full Article: Trump’s assault on election prompts critics to warn of a coup – The Washington Post

National: Cleta Mitchell, Lawyer on Trump Election Call, Quits Firm After Uproar | Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman/The New York Times

A lawyer advising President Trump in recent weeks has resigned from her law firm after it was revealed that she participated in the call where Mr. Trump pressured Georgia officials to help him reverse the state’s election results, the firm said in a statement on Tuesday. The lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, has been advising Mr. Trump despite a policy at her firm, Foley & Lardner, that none of its lawyers should represent clients involved in relitigating the presidential election. “Cleta Mitchell has informed firm management of her decision to resign from Foley & Lardner effective immediately,” the firm said in its statement. “Ms. Mitchell concluded that her departure was in the firm’s best interests, as well as in her own personal best interests. We thank her for her contributions to the firm and wish her well.” Ms. Mitchell’s resignation was the latest evidence of the problems Mr. Trump has created for law firms throughout his time in office, as their employees and clients object to ties with the president. In an email to her clients and friends, Ms. Mitchell blamed her departure on “a massive pressure campaign in the last several days mounted by leftist groups via social media and other means against me, my law firm and clients of the law firm.” She vowed to “redouble” her efforts on what she called “election integrity.”

Full Article: Lawyer on Trump Election Call Quits Firm After Uproar – The New York Times

Editorial: Trump’s Raffensperger call is a crime even if he believes his own fantasies | Trevor Potter and Mark Gaber/The Washington Post

President Trump’s call demanding Georgia officials “find 11,780 votes” and reverse the election results in the state was his most brazen abuse of power yet. If Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger didn’t go along with Trump’s scheme and “recalculate” the vote, the president warned, “it’s going to be very costly in many ways,” threatening that Georgia authorities were committing a “criminal offense” by not endorsing Trump’s false voter fraud claims. The president’s conduct violates the letter and spirit of federal and Georgia criminal laws prohibiting attempts to procure false election results and to solicit election fraud. Since then, some experts have raised questions about whether Trump’s attempted bullying can be prosecuted because of a possible lack of “intent.” The thought is: If the president truly believes the false allegations he is spreading, then his request that Raffensperger “find 11,780 votes” isn’t an effort to corrupt the election, but rather to “correct” it. That defense may not work for Trump in this case. Although a criminal conviction does require proof of intent — proof Trump knew he was asking for nonexistent votes to be counted in his favor — a person cannot avoid criminal liability by simply deciding to believe fantasy over fact. For example, if a person becomes convinced that she owns her neighbor’s car and is shown the title certificate proving otherwise, she cannot steal the car and escape conviction by feigning she truly believed fiction over fact — at least, not without mounting an insanity defense.

Full Article: Trump’s Raffensperger call is a crime even if he believes his own fantasies – The Washington Post

Editorial: Pence cannot intervene on Trump’s behalf during electoral vote counting | Edward B. Foley/The Washington Post

President Trump seems to believe that Vice President Pence could overturn the election results when he presides over the congressional counting of electoral votes on Wednesday. Trump is wrong, but any attempt by Pence to intervene on behalf of himself and Trump, if it comes to that, would be a constitutional travesty. It won’t work, but it would set a dangerous precedent. “I have to tell you, I hope that our great vice president, our great vice president, comes through for us,” Trump told a crowd in Georgia on Monday night at a rally purportedly for Senate candidates David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler but actually for his own flailing efforts to secure a second term. “He’s a great guy. Because if he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him quite as much.” On Tuesday, Trump followed up with specifics. “The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors,” he tweeted. Pence has no such authority ― nor would Senate president pro tem Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), if Pence doesn’t have the courage to show up and perform his constitutional duty. Not under the Constitution and not under the applicable statute, the 1887 Electoral Count Act. There are reports Pence has told Trump this and will not derail the process. Still, until Congress declares Biden the winner, American democracy is facing its greatest challenge since the start of the Civil War at Fort Sumter. Here is what’s supposed to happen when Congress meets on Wednesday. Under the Electoral Count Act, Congress has promised to accept as “conclusive” any state’s “final determination” of litigation over the appointment of its electors. Consequently, this year the process should be straightforward: There is no doubt about how any state resolved the lawsuits that the Trump campaign and its allies filed to challenge the appointment of electors. Trump lost. Joe Biden’s wins were certified. All that remains — or should — is the ceremonial tallying of those votes.

Full Article: Opinion | Pence cannot intervene on Trump’s behalf during electoral vote counting – The Washington Post

Editorial: My Republican colleagues’ ploy threatens the future of the electoral college | Rep. Ken Buck/The Washington Post

Democrats in Congress wrote the playbook for how to dispute an election’s outcome. Republican members of Congress may soon regret that they have adopted not only the rhetoric but the actual tactics from that playbook in their attempt to reject the 2020 election results. I share the concerns of many voters across the country about irregularities in the presidential election. I also share their disappointment with President Trump’s loss. However, the Founders trusted the states to decide elections, not members of Congress. The Republican members who plan to reject certain electors read into the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act a provision that simply does not exist. The 12th Amendment is simple and clear: It calls on Congress to perform the ceremonial role of counting electors. There is no allowance for rejecting electors — no matter how much we may disagree with the result or wish the election process had been better. The electoral college has come under attack in recent years. The left characterizes the system as an antiquated, undemocratic method of selecting the president. In reality, our nation’s Founders designed this system as a compromise that takes into account a variety of competing concerns. The electoral college balanced a desire to allow individuals across the nation to vote for president while also ensuring that small states’ voters would not be ignored.

Full Article: Opinion | Ken Buck: My Republican colleagues’ ploy threatens the future of the electoral college – The Washington Post