The march to the Capitol, the siege, the flags flying. And then the clashes with the police for a total of 52 arrests, 13 injured and 5 victims. It is the budget of the famous assault on Capitol Hill, an attempted insurrection carried out in Washington on 6 January 2021 to challenge the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and support the request of the outgoing president, Donald Trump, for Vice President Mike Pence and Congress to refuse the Joe Biden's proclamation to 46th President. The then outgoing president did not accept defeat in the elections and had been repeating for weeks that the vote was the result of electoral fraud, although never demonstrated.
The assault on Congress, which is still being investigated by a commission of inquiry, was an attack on American democracy but it also marked the beginning of the crisis of republican party, popularly known in the US as the "Grand Old Party" (Gop). From the numerous inquiries into the former president to the bad performance at Midterms 2022, in which Republicans failed to gain control of the Senate and only narrowly won the House until the election of the new House Speaker stalled. But let's go in order.
The assault on Capitol Hill
All the events were concentrated in 7 hours: from 13 to 20, from the beginning of the march of the "trumpians" to the evacuation of the last demonstrators. Seven hours that marked the parable of Trump's leadership crisis that never stopped. Seven hours that changed the course of American politics.
The assault began in the early afternoon, when it was about two in the morning in Italy. Thousand of Trump supporters they had gathered in Washington for a demonstration: the then outgoing president did not accept defeat. “We will never give up, we will stop the theft of votes,” Trump said at the rally. “We have come here to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count voters who have been legally nominated.” And again: “If Mike Pence do the right thing let's win the election. The presidency belongs to the Americans." But Pence refused. "My assessment," he wrote, "is that the oath taken to uphold and defend the Constitution prevents me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes are to be counted and which are not."
A reference that was not accidental, because on that very day, his deputy was presiding over the joint session of Congress, meeting to certify the Joe Biden victory in the presidential elections.
After the outgoing president's speech, the march to Congress. Once the demonstrators arrived, they began to intimidate the policemen guarding the building. They scaled the external walls and terraces, broke down doors and windows, until they managed to break into the building, reaching the halls where the parliamentarians were gathered, evacuated in a hurry.
The whole attack was documented on social media. At first the session of the Congress continued normally, then it was decided to suspend it. Congressmen and senators were evacuated, as was Vice President Mike Pence. He expected an appeal from Trump, which didn't come.
Above all, stood out a man nicknamed "the shaman”, with a painted face, a headdress with fur and horns, bare chest and a spear with the flag of the United States. He became the symbol of the protest and left a message to Vice President Pence: "It's only a matter of time, justice is coming." He wasn't the only one to get noticed. Another man, Richard "Bingo" Barnett he had his feet portrayed on the desk of Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
After a few hours and with the intervention of the National Guard, the forces of order managed to regain control of the premises and the session resumed. The result of the elections was ratified on January 7, after 14 hours of sitting. The same day, Trump released a video in which he condemned the assault and conceded victory to Biden for the first time.
Assault on Capitol Hill: all of Trump's legal woes
After the assault, Washington began investigating the former US president's role in the assault on Capitol Hill.
The House panel, which has been investigating the assault on Capitol Hill for a year and a half, concluded its latest hearing by voting to send Justice Department prosecutors a recommendation that Trump be charged with 4 felonies: incitement to insurrection, obstruction of official congressional proceedings, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and conspiracy to make a false statement. It had never happened before that a parliamentary commission recommended indicting a former president. He will now stand at the Justice department decide what to do with these recommendations, and the result could be a formal indictment for the former president currently running in the 2024 election.
But it doesn't end there. On December 30, 2022, the Democrat-controlled House Tax Committee voted to publish the tax returns of Trump from 2015 to 2020, with some filings on sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers and contact information. The documents confirmed that Trump paid just $750 in federal taxes in 2016 and 2017, compared with nearly $2018 million in 1. Then the accounts abroad: including one in China from 2015 to 2017.
Two years later, America is still waiting for the truth. Was it a protest that got out of hand or a well-organized insurrection? In any case, what happened two years ago showed all the fragility of the American political system. And it has left an unhealed wound that divides Americans. As evidenced by the stalemate of the election of new Speaker in the Chamber: it hasn't happened for 100 years that a Speaker of the House hasn't been elected in the first round.
Usa, the stalemate in the election of the new Speaker in the Chamber
Kevin McCarthy, who enjoys the support of 90% of deputies for the nomination to the presidency of the Chamber, was rejected in six votes. A small group of twenty radical Republicans is blocking his election, taking advantage of the fact that the Republican majority in the House is very small. And it is not clear how they will be able to unblock the impasse.
Even Trump has stepped in to try and get the rebels to vote for the candidate favored by the overwhelming majority of the party. The former president fears a protracted fight could further disaffected a large electoral base that has already deserted the Republican party, jeopardizing his presidential aspirations. But his appeal has been a hole in the water.
The battle of ultra-right radicals against McCarthy is also a battle against the state. Without a president, the Room is locked, the new deputies (Republicans and Democrats) will not be able to take office formally. Nor can they read the classified reports that routinely arrive from government agencies. Even the creation of commissions and any procedure related to the work of parliamentarians remains blocked.
And even if there is a result, it will still be too late. The image that challenges you in the House projects in America and the world embarrasses the whole system. Biden himself is extremely concerned by the republican outburst: “What is happening is embarrassing”. There are no longer the political parties, nor the political universal but rather the parties, reduced to private partialities, both on the right and on the left, which have lost themselves at the mercy of extremist currents and ideological beliefs for their own sake.
