A pro-Trump mob’s siege of the Capitol

Violent supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, shattering windows, ransacking offices and pounding on the barricaded doors of the House chamber while shaken lawmakers huddled inside. The mob’s goal: to disrupt a constitutional ceremony intended to validate the peaceful transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden.

The extraordinary breach of democratic order — blamed by both parties on the president’s incitement — forced members to flee the House and Senate floors under armed guard, delaying Congress’ constitutionally mandated count of electoral college votes.

Four people died — a woman from San Diego who was shot by U.S. Capitol Police and three others who, according to D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee, died in “medical emergencies.” Several police officers were injured, as was a rioter who reportedly fell from a Capitol balcony.

The attack brought the congressional proceedings to a halt for hours, but early Thursday morning, Congress confirmed Biden as the winner of the presidential election. Soon after, a statement attributed to Trump said there “will be an orderly transition on January 20th.”

The Capitol has seen frequent protests and some previous acts of violence — including a bombing in 1915 and shooting in the House Gallery by four supporters of Puerto Rican independence in 1954 — but no riot comparable to Wednesday’s has ever taken place on its grounds.

“This is not dissent. It’s disorder. It’s chaos. It borders on sedition, and it must end now,” Biden said during a brief speech in Wilmington, Del., about two hours after the attack on the Capitol began. Similar calls came from across the political spectrum.

In sharp contrast to June 1, when federal law enforcement officers used force against largely peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstrators near the White House, the Capitol Police retreated in the face of the crowd, who could be seen using crowbars and other objects to break windows and gain entry into the Capitol building.

Rhetoric and Its Consequences

The violence on Wednesday came just after Trump encouraged supporters to march on the Capitol during a 70-minute address rehashing his false claims that Democrats stole the election — but it also followed four years of incendiary, divisive and dishonest rhetoric from Trump.

The president was in the White House watching the coverage as the mob converged on the Capitol, at one point tweeting his irritation with Vice President Mike Pence, who as the president of the Senate had gone to the Capitol to oversee the count, which is all the law and Constitution empower him to do. Pence defied Trump’s calls for him to try to unilaterally invalidate the election result.

Only after more than an hour of watching the escalating chaos did the administration dispatch the National Guard to the Capitol — and ultimately it was Pence, not Trump, who coordinated with the Pentagon, the vice president’s office confirmed. As former administration officials criticized Trump’s meek response to the violence by his supporters, the president tweeted to them to “go home” and, rather than condemning them, praised them. Eventually, Twitter and Facebook locked down his accounts.

In a sign of Trump’s growing isolation, Vermont’s Republican Gov. Phil Scott called for the president’s removal from office, and the National Assn. of Manufacturers — a Republican-friendly business group — put out a statement by its president denouncing Trump and calling on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment provisions allowing the Cabinet to replace the president. Numerous lawmakers and political leaders across the nation called for Trump to be impeached a second time, despite the expiration of his term in two weeks.

— Members of armed right-wing groups that stormed the Capitol said they supported the mob attack, calling it the beginning of another American revolution.

— “I’m in a roomful of people panicked that I might inadvertently give away their location”: Times reporter Sarah D. Wire gives a first-person account of being in the Capitol.

Democrats Gain Senate Control

Before the tumult at the Capitol, Biden learned that Democrats are poised to control both chambers of Congress after the still-unofficial victories by the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia’s Senate runoffs.

Until Tuesday’s election, Biden faced the prospect of being the first Democrat since 1885 to enter the White House without his party controlling both houses of Congress. Now, by contrast, Democrats will have the power to decide what bills and nominations — judicial and executive branch — come to the Senate floor.

With that came the news that Biden has decided to choose Judge Merrick Garland of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, whom President Obama had tried to put on the Supreme Court, as his nominee for attorney general. Democratic control of the Senate also means California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra’s path to becoming head the Department of Health and Human Services and $2,000 relief checks for Americans became significantly more likely, and a passel of Trump-era regulations got shakier.

OPINION

— Don’t let the appalling mob attack on the Capitol obscure the GOP’s shameful enabling, The Times’ editorial board writes. Even if things had proceeded peacefully, the attempt to have Congress override the will of the voters was an outrage that could haunt the country in future elections.

— We can be outraged, saddened and terrified. But we can’t be surprised by what happened in D.C., columnist Robin Abcarian writes.

— Americans are used to saying, “It can’t happen here.” On Wednesday, it did. TV