Officials in Washington, D.C., are bracing for clashes in the streets Wednesday as thousands of pro-Trump supporters arrive to protest the presidential election and cheer on challenges of the Electoral College in Congress.
President Trump in several tweets has called his supporters to gather in the country’s capital for “wild” protests, sparking fears of trouble between proponents and critics of the president.
Three groups have submitted permits to the National Parks Service (NPS) to hold demonstrations Tuesday and Wednesday, calling on Congress to move toward overturning the election in Trump’s favor. The NPS has approved one, granting Women For America First a permit for the “March for Trump” at the Ellipse — the area between the White House and the National Mall.
The Proud Boys, a far-right group, and members of other armed right-wing organizations also have committed to rallying Wednesday. Trump has tweeted he plans to attend at least one of the demonstrations.
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) on Sunday cautioned the city’s residents to avoid protesters “who come to our city seeking confrontation.”
“I am asking Washingtonians and those who live in the region to stay out of the downtown area on Tuesday and Wednesday and not to engage with demonstrators who come to our city seeking confrontation, and we will do what we must to ensure all who attend remain peaceful,” she said in a Sunday statement.
Bowser’s office also issued reminders that the city’s laws forbid carrying guns on the U.S. Capitol and NPS grounds and that firearms are not permitted within 1,000 feet of a protest.
D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine told CBS News’s “The Takeout” podcast on Friday that his “level of anxiety is high.”
He specifically raised concerns about the Proud Boys coming back to D.C. to “pick fights, create damage, damage property and then act in a very threatening way” toward Black institutions in the city, as he said they did during protests last month.
Four people were stabbed after clashes between Trump supporters and counterprotesters the night of a mid-December demonstration, fanning fears of violence this week.
The stabbings occurred near the Hotel Harrington and its bar Harry’s, which Proud Boys members frequented in recent months. The hotel announced last week that it planned to shut down between Monday and Wednesday to “protect the safety of our visitors, guests and employees.” The hotel bar is also set to close Tuesday and Wednesday.
Last week, the Proud Boys announced that its members plan to attend this week’s rallies “incognito” by splitting into smaller groups and wearing “all BLACK” to mimic what anti-fascist groups typically wear at protests.
Wednesday’s “March for Trump,” which the president said he’d attend, is expecting 5,000 participants and plans to host Trump allies Roger Stone and Rudy Giuliani as speakers.
Another group, the newly formed Eighty Percent Coalition, applied for a permit to host its “Rally to Save America” at Lafayette Square and the White House on Tuesday with about 10,000 people. The group’s name refers to the about three-quarters of Republicans who have said in polls they do not believe the election results.
A third permit application was submitted by The Silent Majority and its founder James Epley to gather hundreds of people at Lafayette Square and the White House on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Epley, who is from South Carolina, told The Hill that the estimates of 10,000 to 12,000 total people coming to D.C. for protests are “laughable.” Instead, he said hundreds of thousands will flood the city.
“There’s a lot of doubt out there, and I don’t know how the country moves forward” without an investigation into the election process, he said.
A fourth demonstration entitled “Wild Protest” is scheduled to take place on the Capitol lawn on Wednesday. The demonstration, named after Trump’s tweet last month, is designed to support Republican lawmakers’ challenge to the “fraudulent Electoral College.”
The city’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is closing roads and restricting parking, mostly around the White House and the National Mall for Tuesday and Wednesday.
Newly sworn-in MPD chief Robert Contee told The Washington Post last week that “violence will not be tolerated."
Trump has refused to concede to President-elect Joe Biden although the Electoral College has officially certified Biden as the victor in the election. Instead, the president and his legal team have promoted claims that widespread voter fraud affected the election results. His legal challenges have repeatedly failed in court, state officials in Georgia and other battleground states have rejected the president’s assertions, and his continued protests have badly divided the GOP.
In most cases, Congress’s certification of the Electoral College is a formality, but dozens of Republicans in the House and Senate have indicated they will contest the vote.
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) is leading the effort backed by scores of Republicans in the House, while about a dozen GOP senators, including Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Ted Cruz (Texas), have come out in support of the objection.
The challenge is doomed to failure given opposition from Democrat and other Republicans, a fact that some Republicans supporting the effort have acknowledged.
Congress’s certification of the Electoral College is the final step of confirming Biden’s win before his inauguration on Jan. 20.
I like that narrative "stop the steal"
Yep, stop the steal.......... of the intelligence of those that are being brainwashed to think that Biden didn't win the election with legit/legal votes!
So we are having another huge protest during the peak in the pandemic with people smashed together, even more not wearing the almost worthless cloth masks(that we are misled to believe protect us) and spreading COVID.
Maybe, because its the right doing it this time, it will cause the left to tell us the truth about the Summer protests spreading COVID )-:
Covering up massive COVID being spread from protests-8/8 update below
29 responses |
Started by metmike - July 30, 2020, 7:28 p.m.
I especially love the term DC "Braces"....not that anyone in the msm would use language that is not only purposely false but hurtful to Repubs . Maybe somebody here could explain why they are "bracing: for peaceful protestors that they will not have to provide security for and those same protestors even clean up after them selves. Anyone want to compare these people to blm thugs? This crap gets real old in the msm.
Some 100 National Guardsmen will be in Washington this week to help support police officers patrolling protests planned by President Donald Trump supporters this week.
“We have received confirmation that the D.C. National Guard will be assisting the Metropolitan Police Department, beginning tomorrow through the life cycle of this event,” Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee III told reporters at a press conference on Monday.
National Guard personnel will be assisting police officers with crowd management and traffic control, freeing officers “to focus on anyone who’s intent on instigating, agitating, or participating in violence in our city,” he added.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, revealed she’d asked for National Guard personnel in a Dec. 31 letter to District of Columbia National Guard Commanding General William Walker.
Bowser said guardsmen would not be armed and would not be engaged in domestic surveillance, searches, or seizures of Americans.
Pro-Trump ralliers plan on gathering in D.C. this week to protest during the counting of electoral votes.
Bowser noted that two pro-Trump protests late last year devolved into violence. In both instances, most violence appeared to be perpetrated by left-wing agitators, but pro-Trump ralliers, including members of the Proud Boys, were filmed brawling as well.
Enrique Tarrio, the chairman of the right-wing group, said on Parler recently that members would be in D.C. on Jan. 6 but would not be wearing their traditional black and yellow outfits. “We will be incognito and we will spread across downtown DC in smaller teams,” he wrote.
The Harrington Hotel, where Proud Boys members often stayed and congregated, announced last month that it was closing Jan. 4 to Jan. 6.
Other groups linked to violence at previous protests, including Black Lives Matter, plan on turning out this week.
Refuse Fascism called on people to go to the city, saying the protests “must not go unopposed.”
Bowser on Sunday asked Washingtonians and those who live in the region to avoid the downtown area on both Tuesday and Wednesday.
People should not “engage with demonstrators who come to our city seeking confrontation, and we will do what we must to ensure all who attend remain peaceful,” she said.
People are allowed to protest in Washington but authorities won’t allow them “to incite violence,” Bowser said Monday.
Contee said signs have been posted around the city emphasizing it is illegal to possess firearms on the U.S. Capitol grounds and on National Park Service areas, and that the District of Columbia does not recognize concealed carry permits issued by other jurisdictions.
The U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement that it “has comprehensive security plans in place and we continuously monitor and assess new and emerging threats, with the overall goal of keeping those within the Capitol Complex safe and secure.”
metmike: Based on history, one can guess that there won't be much rioting, fires, vandalism and attacks on law enforcement by the main protesters.
so again the question....we have riots all over the country by blm. Fires, robbing raping, business's and peoples lives ruined, trash 6 feet deep in places and yet there was no "bracing"....in this case there will be nothing to brace against except conservatives cleaning the streets afterwords.....why was this offensive lie used and why are not more people objecting to this ohhh so typical lib tactic?
THe problems won't come from the right wing protesters. They'll come from the left wing counter-protesters, and some of these groups don't shy away from the likes of ANTIFA.
The heated partisan politics of Capitol Hill will jump to scorching on Wednesday, when President Trump's staunchest Republican allies will launch a formal, public and futile effort to keep him in power by overturning the results of November's election.
Trump’s allegations of rampant voter fraud have been debunked by the states and rejected by the courts. But that hasn’t stopped more than 100 GOP loyalists in the House and Senate from backing his bid to toss out the vote tallies of certain battleground states.
The extraordinary gambit has convulsed the Capitol in the final days of Trump’s reign and cleaved the GOP into warring factions — divisions that will bear long-lasting implications for both the future direction of the Republican Party and the success of the ambitious figures scrambling to lead it into a post-Trump world.
Such challenges have been tried before, but not on this scale: At least 13 Senate Republicans and more than 100 House Republicans are expected to vote to reject certification. Most of them are citing the various changes to election rules at precincts around the country in response to the public health threat posed by the coronavirus.
“I believe that this debate and discussion is owed to the American people. You have tens of millions of Americans who really have questions about the ballot integrity and election security,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a key Trump defender during last year’s impeachment trial, said on Fox News.
The band of dissenting Republicans represents an unprecedented level of opposition to state-certified vote counts. And critics of the effort, largely Democrats, say it’s one that threatens to further erode Americans’ already waning trust in institutions and could cause lasting damage to America’s election system. Even some Republicans are warning colleagues that their effort is not only politically perilous, but patently unconstitutional.
“While I may not like the outcome of the election, that does not mean I can, nor should I, try to usurp the powers of the individual states of our republic,” said Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), who hails from the same state as GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, one of the leaders of the pro-Trump effort.
“To allow Congress to alter the decided outcome of the election would irreparably damage our system of government and defy the Constitution.”
Wednesday’s event is typically a staid and uneventful affair.
In recent elections, only a handful of lawmakers from the opposition party launched objections, including a failed effort by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and other Congressional Black Caucus members to protest Florida’s contested vote count in 2000, and another by then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and then-Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) objecting to Ohio’s handling of the 2004 election.
But with Trump agitating his base and threatening to recruit primary challengers to run against disloyal lawmakers, many Republicans, particularly in the House, feel that it would be political suicide to defy the president, a lame duck who still holds enormous sway over his party.
“We don't have a choice,” said one reluctant House Republican, citing pressure from Trump and conservative voters back in his district.
Highlighting the risk to Republicans who want to keep their day job, Trump on Tuesday evening fired a warning shot at GOP lawmakers thinking of abandoning him.
“I hope the Democrats, and even more importantly, the weak and ineffective RINO [Republican in name only] section of the Republican Party, are looking at the thousands of people pouring into D.C.,” Trump tweeted. “They won’t stand for a landslide election victory to be stolen.”
Complicating the decision for Republicans were a pair of special Senate elections in Georgia on Tuesday, when voters went to the polls to decide which party will control the upper chamber over the next two years. With the stakes so high, Republicans were wary of bucking the popular president and deflating the base ahead of those contests.
The process itself promises to be a spectacle of political theater — and a long one, at that.
Members of both chambers will gather in the House at 1 p.m. for a joint session of Congress as part of the quadrennial exercise to count the Electoral College votes submitted by the states. It’s there that conservative Republicans are expected to challenge the electoral results in as many as six states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — where they’ve accused election officials of various improprieties.
For each state that’s formally challenged, the House and Senate will split up to their respective chambers to debate the merits of the objection for up to two hours, after which time each chamber votes.
For a state’s vote to be scrapped, both chambers must approve it. Because Democrats control the House, none of the challenges will pass, paving the way for Biden to assume the White House on Jan. 20.
“I expect without a doubt that the report of the Electoral College and the 306 electoral votes that Mr. Biden got will be confirmed at the end of this process,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters.
Wednesday’s proceedings also come against the backdrop of the race to succeed Trump at the top of the party, even as he’s flirted with running again in 2024. A pair of likely presidential hopefuls — Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Hawley — are spearheading the effort to overturn the election, betting that Trump will remain popular among the party faithful heading into the next presidential election cycle.
But several others mulling a White House bid, including Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), are taking the opposite view, arguing that raising objections would erode states’ rights, hand too much power to Congress and amount to an exercise in futility.
“Objecting to certified electoral votes won't give the president a second term,” Cotton wrote Tuesday in an op-ed in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “With Democrats in control of the House, Republicans have no chance of invalidating even a single electoral vote, much less enough votes to deny Joe Biden a majority in the electoral college."
“Instead, these objections would exceed Congress' constitutional power, while creating unwise precedents that Democrats could abuse the next time they are in power.”
Some of Trump’s fiercest House allies have also emerged in recent days as the most vocal opponents of the state challenges. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), for instance, is an ardent Trump supporter, a member of the House Freedom Caucus and Cruz’s former chief of staff. Still, the conservative firebrand offered a resolution on the House floor Sunday attempting to block the swearing-in of any new members of Congress from the six contested states.
Roy’s message to his GOP colleagues was not subtle: If Biden’s victory in those states is illegitimate, he was saying, then yours might be, too. Few of his fellow Republicans saw the discrepancy, however, and only two GOP lawmakers voted to prevent Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) from swearing in the entire House.
Outside the building, officials in Washington are bracing for tensions and even the possibility of violence as thousands of pro-Trump protesters pour into a famously liberal city.
Police have installed a perimeter fence around the Capitol complex, and House Sergeant at Arms Paul D. Irving has urged lawmakers to use secure underground tunnels to travel between their offices and the House chamber rather than walking or driving outdoors.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has mobilized the National Guard, and implored D.C. residents to avoid downtown and not engage the pro-Trump factions. Downtown businesses boarded up their windows and doors.
Republicans “are inciting violence. Trump is too,” warned Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly (Va.), who represents the suburbs outside of Washington.
“Now the counting of ballots, which is a ministerial act, is now going to become an opportunity for political incitement and potential violence.”
One hundred and two Republicans have committed to objecting to electoral votes during the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, according to an Epoch Times tally.
That includes 13 senators.
Congress is convening in Washington to count ballots sent by state electors, under the Electoral College system. Congress will determine who is president-elect based on the votes.
President Donald Trump ran for a second term against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Objections must be in writing and have the support of at least one senator and one representative. An objection triggers a withdrawal from the joint session and a two-hour debate, followed by a vote. A majority vote in each chamber votes upholds an objection, which would nullify the contested electoral votes.
“I’m hoping that the American people get to hear just a small amount of evidence” during the debates, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told The Epoch Times on Tuesday.
House Democrats are planning to use the debate time to present their “constitutional, historical, and thematic justification for respecting the will of the people,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told colleagues in a Jan. 5 letter.
A candidate must reach 270 electoral votes to win. If neither candidate does, a secondary system is triggered wherein each state’s representatives combine in one vote to elect the next president. The Senate would do the same for vice president.
Pelosi and fellow Democrats say Biden has already won the election. Trump and others assert the election isn’t over.
Trump this week signaled he’d continue challenging the election even if Biden is certified the winner by Congress.
“That was a rigged election, but we’re still fighting it and you’ll see what’s going to happen,” he told a rally in Georgia.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.)
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.)
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.)
Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.)
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.)
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.)
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.)
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.)
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.)
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.)
Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.)
Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.)
Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.)
Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas)
Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.)
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.)
Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas)
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.)
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas)
Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.)
Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah)
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.)
Rep. Jerry Carl (R-Ala.)
Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-N.M.)
Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.)
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.)
Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.)
Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.)
Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.)
Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.)
Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.)
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.)
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.)
Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.)
Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.)
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.)
Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.)
Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.)
Rep. Fred Keller (R-Pa.)
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.)
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.)
Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas)
Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga)
Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.)
Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.)
Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.)
Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.)
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.)
Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kan.)
Rep. Tracey Mann (R-Kan.)
Rep. Jacob LaTurner (R-Kan.)
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.)
Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.)
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.)
Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah)
Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho)
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)
Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.)
Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.)
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.)
Rep. Ron Wright (R-Texas)
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio)
Rep. John Carter (R-Texas)
Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.)
Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.)
Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.)
Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.)
Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.)
Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.)
Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.)
Rep. David Rouzer (R-N.C.)
Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio)
Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.)
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas)
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.)
Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas)
Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.)
Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.)
Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.)
Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.)
Rep. Rick Allen (R-Ga.)
Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.)
Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.)
Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.)
Rep. Gregory Steube (R-Fla.)
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.)
Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.)
Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.)