Inside the insurrection
Ryan Grim
Jan 7
At 2:18 Wednesday afternoon, Capitol Police sent out an ominous warning to
congressional staffers and members of Congress: "Internal security threat:
move inside office/lock doors, seek cover, and remain silent."
The warning was a bit late. Protesters were already at the door of the
congressional staffer who sent me an image of the text alert. Trump
supporters intent on stopping Joe Biden from becoming president had smashed
into the United States Capitol and the surrounding offices. The fallout from
this assault will be unfolding for a very long time. There will be plenty of
time in the days, weeks and months ahead to talk about what this all means.
But for today, I wanted to share a bit of what happened. My former HuffPost
colleague Matt Fuller, along with a handful of Capitol Hill reporters caught
in the melee, was shepherded to a secure location along with about 200
members of Congress as the insurrectionists breached the gates. He spoke to
me from that secure location in the Capitol complex for a quick episode of
our Deconstructed podcast.
Matt was in the press gallery overlooking the House floor as the mob tried
to smash its way in. His beat the last decade has been the far-right wing of
the House Republican conference, known as the Freedom Caucus, which is
inextricably linked with this violence, and was also, it turns out,
sheltered in place with Matt.
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I also talked with Jon Farina, who was shooting camera footage of the Trump
rally earlier in the day, as well as the assault on the Capitol, for the
independent media organization Status Coup. You can listen to what they
witnessed here.
An increasing number of Democrats are already calling for Trump's immediate
impeachment and removal -- a step that would prevent him from pardoning
those who stormed the Capitol, prevent whatever else he might be planning,
would make future presidents think twice before inciting insurrection after
the loss of an election, and would disqualify him from ever running again.
The 25th Amendment, which would have him removed by his cabinet, is also
being kicked around. Yet 121 Republicans in the House, and six in the
Senate, still objected later that night to the continued counting of the
Electoral College votes, even after stepping over broken glass to cast that
vote.
In the middle of all this, Jon Ossoff was declared the winner of his Senate
election, joining Raphael Warnock, who'd already been deemed victorious in
the other Georgia Senate race. That gives Democrats control of the Senate.
If you missed our earlier podcast on the political history of Georgia, it
might be a particularly interesting listen today, given everything that's
happened.
