IPNews-Washington D.C.: “Our long electoral nightmare is finally over.”
Congress certified Joe Biden’s election victory early Thursday in the final constitutional step before his inauguration after the process was interrupted by throngs of far-right attackers who stormed the U.S. Capitol in a deadly and unprecedented assault on American democracy incited by President Trump.

At last, members of the House and Senate ¬finished counting the 538 Electoral College votes at 3:38 a.m. after the pro-Trump mob delayed the inevitable for nearly eight hours by occupying the Capitol, fighting with police officers, smashing windows and desecrating other parts of the historic building, resulting in four deaths, many more injuries and dozens of arrests.
Despite the tragic violence, the congressional count affirmed what has been known for months: Biden won the Nov. 3 election with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), usually a key Trump ally, joined scores of lawmakers who upheld Biden’s victory. McConnell also slammed the pro-Trump invaders for their “failed insurrection.”

“The United States and the United States Congress have faced down much greater threats than the unhinged crowd we saw today,” McConnell said as he reopened the joint session after lawmakers were forced to evacuate and shelter in place during the riot. “We’ve never been deterred before. We won’t be deterred today. They tried to disrupt our democracy. They failed.”

Trump, who refused for months to admit he lost the election, fanned the flames of the chaos, urging supporters at a huge rally before the session to “fight like hell” to overturn Biden’s win. He also told them to march to the Capitol in protest of what he called the “bulls–t” election results.

“Let’s have trial by combat,” Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor-turned-Trump henchman, shouted to cheers from the crowd in front of the White House.

The mayhem that ensued left one woman dead from gunshot wounds, as the rioters, many of whom were armed, broke their way into both congressional chambers, forcing a standoff with Capitol Police in what marked one of the darkest chapters in modern American history. Another three people died from unspecified “medical emergencies” during the clashes, police said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) lambasted Trump for egging on the rioters with his baseless fraud conspiracy theories.

“This will be a stain on our country not so easily washed away. The final, terrible, indelible legacy of the 45th president of the United States — undoubtedly our worst,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

Only after the congressional certification, Trump issued a statement admitting for the first time that he lost the election and committing to an “orderly” transition of power.

It wasn’t just far-right thugs who delayed the certification process.
Dozens of House Republicans, often led by QAnon conspiracy theory-promoting Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, filed challenges to unilaterally throw out results in six Biden-won battleground states, citing Trump’s false and repeatedly debunked claim that voter fraud facilitated the victories.
However, the Trump loyalists in the House only managed to convince Republican senators to support two challenges — against the results in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

As spelled out by the Constitution, the House and Senate could as a result only hold debates and votes on those two challenges.

After heated debates — with two members nearly getting into a fistfight on the House floor — both chambers rejected the Pennsylvania and Arizona objections in overwhelmingly bipartisan votes, delivering a blistering rebuke of Trump’s tumultuous presidency.

“Enough, my beloved colleagues. It is time for America to heal,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who lost his son to suicide last month, said in the night’s final debate speech. “Let us stop pouring salt in the wounds of America for no reason at all.”

Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over Wednesday’s joint session, became the latest Trump loyalist to break with the increasingly unhinged president as he refused to single-handedly attempt to erase electoral votes cast for Biden, citing his loyalty to the Constitution. “We defended our Capitol today,” Pence said.

Trump, who publicly pressured Pence this week to squash electoral votes at will, was enraged by his vice president’s refusal to violate the Constitution. “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done,” he tweeted after his raucous rally.

GOP senators led by Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri had initially planned on backing far more challenges, but changed their minds after the unsettling siege of the Capitol.

Hawley, an ardent Trump ally with 2024 presidential aspirations, was the only senator to join a challenge after the occupation, signing onto the Pennsylvania challenge as broken glass still littered the halls of Congress.

Trump was cooped up at the White House as Congress locked in Biden’s victory, unable to post tweets and Facebook posts because both social media platforms locked his accounts over posts he made about the Capitol attack that violated their policies against glorifying violence.

Before being thrown in social media jail, Trump defended the violent insurrectionists, many of whom waved confederate battle flags.
“We love you. You’re very special,” he said in a Twitter video that the platform has since deleted. “I know how you feel, but go home.”

According to several reports, members of Trump’s Cabinet began discussions late Wednesday of the possibility of using the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office on the grounds that he’s a danger to the nation.
Some House Democrats, meantime, began drawing up articles of impeachment against Trump, who was already impeached by the House in 2019, but acquitted by the Senate.

The congressional certification effectively affirmed there was no widespread voter fraud or irregularities in the Nov. 3 vote, as already concluded by dozens of courts across the country, Republican and Democratic election officials and even some of the president’s own allies, including recently resigned Attorney General William Barr.

It clears the way for Biden to be inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on Jan. 20.
In a phone interview with the Daily News before the Capitol was sieged, Rep. Mondaire Jones, a freshman Democrat who represents Westchester County, condemned fellow New York Reps. Nicole Malliotakis and Elise Stefanik for being among the Republicans who backed challenges to Biden’s win.

“It is shameful behavior, and I think the electorate in the more moderate of the two districts is not going to react kindly to this blatant attempt to undermine our democracy,” Jones said, referring to Malliotakis, whose Staten Island-spanning district was until this year represented by Democrat Max Jones.
Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, the only Republican in Congress who voted to remove Trump from office during his impeachment trial last year, echoed Jones’ sentiment.

“What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the president of the United States,” Romney said. “Those who choose to continue to support his dangerous gambit by objecting to the results of a legitimate, democratic election will forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy.” (COUTESY OF CBS NEWS)