Harris confirms Trump’s US election victory four years after Capitol riots

Four years after a mob of Donald Trump supporters violently laid siege to the U.S. Capitol, Congress formally approved the president-elect’s reelection in a special session.

Vice President Kamala Harris, whom President Trump defeated in the 2024 presidential election, presided over the event as required by the U.S. Constitution.

But the shadow of Jan. 6, 2021, lingered over Monday’s proceedings, despite a campaign by Trump and his allies to recast the attack as a “day of love.”

Security was tight in Washington, D.C., and current President Joe Biden vowed there would never be a repeat of the violence of four years ago.

“Congress today certifies our great election victory,” President Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It is an important moment in history.”

Thinking back to the chaos of four years ago, that day was special even in the ordinary. Harris stood sombrely in front of the U.S. House chamber as lawmakers read each state’s election results before officially declaring them.

The results declared Trump the winner, but Harris received a standing ovation from congressional Democrats as she read out her Electoral College vote tally.

Vice President-elect J.D. Vance attended. Seated right next to him was Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, one of the few Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in his impeachment trial over the riot. That vote ultimately failed and Trump was acquitted.

Previously, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson promised in an interview with Fox News that certification would proceed despite bad weather. .”

Meanwhile, Representative Harris pledged, “I will fulfill my constitutional duty as Vice President to certify the results of the 2024 election.”

“This is a sacred duty,” she said in a video statement. “I will defend it with love for my country, loyalty to the Constitution, and unwavering faith in the American people.”

In general, there is little need to say anything about such procedures. The U.S. Constitution certifies the January 6 presidential election and requires the vice president to oversee the vote.

But the last time the U.S. Congress met to certify the U.S. presidential election, voting was delayed for hours as rioters, inspired by the false belief that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, broke windows and tore through lines. Police stormed the U.S. House of Representatives and ransacked the offices of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others.

In a speech in Washington, D.C., before the violence broke out, President Trump told the crowd to “fight like hell” but urged them to speak out “peacefully.”

Lawmakers, including Republicans, were forced to hide underground, while Capitol staffers hid wherever they could find shelter. Then-Vice President Mike Pence rushed into hiding as rioters erected a gallows on the Capitol grounds and demanded that he be hanged for refusing to incorrectly certify the results in Trump’s favor.

In the aftermath, Capitol groundskeepers worked furiously to clear broken windows and trash-strewn hallways. Congressional staff spent the next few months reflecting on the trauma caused by the attack.

The riots caused nearly $3 million (£2.4 million) in damage, injured more than 100 police officers and shocked the American political system.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, which was witnessed by millions of Americans on television and social media, there was little debate about who was responsible.

The U.S. House of Representatives moved to impeach Trump on charges of inciting the riot, but the Senate failed to get the two-thirds votes needed to convict him. At the time, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., criticized Trump explicitly, saying the rioters “did this because they told outrageous lies because they were angry that the most powerful man on the planet lost an election.”

Trump himself faces federal indictments on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, to which he has pleaded not guilty. However, the Department of Justice (DoJ) had no choice but to dismiss the case after he was elected last year because of rules that prevent the prosecution of a sitting president.

As Trump seeks to return to power, he and his allies have worked to dramatically change the narrative about the riots and their causes.

“Nothing wrong happened,” Trump said at a presidential campaign forum in October 2024.

He called those convicted by the Justice Department “hostages” and “political prisoners.” And his new vice president, JD Vance, refused to acknowledge during the presidential debate that Trump lost the 2020 election.

Americans are now sharply divided in their views on that day. A January 2024 Washington Post/University of Maryland poll found that a quarter of Americans believe the conspiracy theory that the FBI incited the attack. A majority of Americans believed January 6, 2021, was an attack on democracy, but only 18% of Republicans thought that, the survey found.

President Trump’s second term begins after his inauguration on January 20. It marks a surprising political comeback from his 2020 election defeat, and in 2024 he became the first criminal conviction for a sitting or former U.S. president.

The president-elect has pledged to pardon those found guilty in the attack. He said many of them were “unjustly imprisoned,” but acknowledged that “some of them probably got out of control.”

Biden urged Americans to never forget what happened.

“We must remember the wisdom of the adage that a nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it,” Biden wrote in the Washington Post last weekend.

Trump’s new Senate leader, John Thune, has announced his intention to resign, telling the BBC’s US partner CBS News: “We can’t be looking in the rear-view mirror.”