BEVERLY HILLS, January 07, (THEWILL) – The U.S Congress on Thursday certified the election of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. hours after pro-Trump supporters stormed and occupied the Capitol, disrupting the final electoral count in a display of violence that shook the core of American democracy.
However, Trump said early Thursday that there would be an orderly presidential transition this month.
The statement came moments after Vice -President Mike Pence affirmed Mr. Biden as the winner of the presidential election shortly before 4 a.m. after the final electoral votes were tallied in a joint session of Congress.
The siege at the Capitol was the climax of a week-long campaign by Trump to try to overturn a democratically decided election.
By the time the Senate reconvened late Wednesday, hours after lawmakers had been evacuated from a Capitol overrun by a mob carrying pro-Trump paraphernalia, one of the nation’s most polarizing moments had yielded an unexpected window of solidarity. Republicans and Democrats locked arms to denounce the violence and express their determination to carry out what they called a constitutionally sacrosanct function.
“To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins. And this is still the people’s house”, Pence said
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, said the “failed insurrection” had only clarified Congress’s purpose. “They tried to disrupt our democracy,” he said. “They failed.”
After the vote was certified early Thursday, Barry C. Black, the Senate chaplain, said a prayer in the chamber in an emotional close to a chaotic day in which a woman was fatally shot inside the Capitol.
“These tragedies have reminded us that words matter and that the power of life and death is in the tongue,” he said. “We deplore the desecration of the United States Capitol building, the shedding of innocent blood, the loss of life, and the quagmire of dysfunction that threaten our democracy.”
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