After one of the most convulsive days in US history, the US Congress on Thursday ratified the result of the November elections, and the outgoing President, Donald Trump, finally committed to an “orderly transition” from power to president-elect, Joe Biden.
The Congress that validated Biden’s victory was not the same that had met fourteen hours earlier to begin counting the electoral votes of each state in the November elections, as the damage to the House of Representatives headquarters demonstrated.
After almost four hours of assault by Trump supporters, who marched towards Congress at the urging of the outgoing president himself, lawmakers from both parties considered it important to resume the session that interrupted the unprecedented insurrection in Washington on the same night on Wednesday.
PENCE CONFIRMS BIDEN AS A WINNER
“To those who unleashed chaos on our Capitol today (Wednesday): you have not won. Violence never wins,” outgoing US Vice President Mike Pence said when the joint session of both houses resumed late on Wednesday. Wednesday.
More than seven hours later, the session concluded with Pence, who for the past four years has been Trump’s loyal squire, declaring the defeat of both in the November elections, and the victory of Biden and the vice president-elect, Kamala Harris.
“This announcement … should be considered a sufficient statement of who are the people elected as president and vice president of the United States,” Pence said after 3:40 am in Washington (08:40 GMT).
TRUMP PROMISES AN “ORDERLY TRANSITION”
Immediately afterwards, Trump distributed a statement in which he committed to “an orderly transition on January 20” when Biden will come to power, although he again showed “totally disagreeing with the outcome of the elections.”
“I’ve always said that we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. Although this represents the end of the best first term in presidential history, it is only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!” he added, citing his electoral motto.
Trump’s statement, posted on Twitter by his communication adviser Dan Scavino, was probably the closest the outgoing president will come to acknowledging defeat in the election, something he has promised his followers that he would “never “will do.
THE END OF A LONGER THAN USUAL PROCESS
The ratification in Congress finally completed an electoral process that began on Election Day and should have concluded when the Electoral College – the competent body in this field in the United States – confirmed Biden’s victory, on December 14. .
The session in the US legislature is foreseen in the Constitution as a mere ceremonial procedure to corroborate that all the states have transmitted their results to Washington in order.
However, a Trump in full undemocratic drift insisted on pressuring his allies in Congress and Pence himself to arrogate powers that do not correspond to them under the Constitution, and interfere in the session.
Pence already advanced before the meeting began on Wednesday that he was not willing to do so, breaking the staunch loyalty he has shown to Trump in recent years, given the impossibility of following his wishes without violating the Constitution.
However, a hundred Republican congressmen in the Lower House and almost a dozen senators did enter Trump’s game, and managed to unleash a debate on the possibility of not counting the result of the elections in the key state of Arizona, where he won Biden.
Legislators were debating this issue when the Capitol robbery occurred, and when they returned to plenary six hours later, they continued to argue about challenging the results in Arizona, which ultimately failed in both house votes.
Another similar objection in the Pennsylvania case sparked a two-hour debate in the plenary session of the Lower House, but ultimately it too wrecked, as it did in the Senate.
UNBELIEVABLE “A STAIN” IN THE CONGRESS
The uprising of Trump supporters on Capitol Hill deterred at least three Republican senators from going ahead with their plan to back the challenge in several key states, and no one in the Upper House raised objections to the outcome in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada or Wisconsin. , as originally planned.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell had objected to his colleagues’ attempt to question the outcome of the elections in session, calling for the process to go smoothly after the “failed insurrection” on Capitol Hill.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic Minority Leader, was tougher in summing up an infamous day, blaming Trump for the chaos that resulted in what should have been a mere paperwork.
“This will be a stain on our country, which will not be easily erased. The last (sample) of the terrible and indelible legacy of the 45th president of the United States, undoubtedly the worst we have had,” Schumer said in the full Senate.
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