09:23
Biden lays responsibility of 6 January attack on Trump
Joe Biden has taken the podium to speak on the anniversary of the 6 January attack of the US Capitol, and he immediately comes out strong in laying the responsibility of the mob’s actions on Donald Trump.
“One year ago today in this sacred place, democracy was attacked,” Biden said. “The will of the people was under assault. The constitution, our constitution, faced the gravest of threats.”
Biden continued: “For the first time in our history, a president had not just lost an election, he tried to prevent a peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol”.
Updated
09:20
Vice-president Kamala Harris said she tells young people that she meets that the 6 January attack “reflects the dual nature of democracy: its fragility and its strength”.
“You see, the strength of democracy is the rule of law,” she said. “The strength of democracy is the principle that everybody is to be treated equally, that elections should be free and fair, that corruption should be given no order. The strength of democracy is that it empowers the people. The fragility of democracy is this: if we are not vigilant, if we don’t defend it, democracy will not stand. It will falter. And it will fall.”
09:14
Vice-president Kamala Harris has taken the podium to speak about the anniversary of the 6 January attack on the US Capitol. Harris was vice-president-elect on that day, but she was also a senator. Though she had left the building at the time the mob breeched the gates, she spoke of how her staff was forced to convert “filing cabinets into barricades.”
Harris said the day now lives on as one of the worst days in American history along with attack on Pearl Harbor and 9/11.
“What the extremists who roamed these halls targeted was not just the lives of elected leaders,” Harris said. “What they sought to degrade and destroy was not only a building, hallowed as it is. What they were assaulting were the institutions, the values, the ideas that generations of Americans have marched, picketed and shed blood to establish and defend.”
Updated
09:00
Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris are preparing to speak to the American public from National Statuary Hall, just south of the rotunda that was invaded and besmirched by rioters during the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.
We’ll have a livestream for you here on this blog.
Updated
08:58
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has used his statement on the 6 January attack on the US Capitol – “was a dark day for Congress and our country” – to throw a potshot at the Democrats.
“It has been stunning to see some Washington Democrats try to exploit this anniversary to advance partisan policy goals that long predated this event,” McConnell said in a statement. “It is especially jaw-dropping to hear some Senate Democrats invoke the mob’s attempt to disrupt our country’s norms, rules, and institutions as a justification to discard our norms, rules, and institutions themselves.”
Democrats like senate majority leader Chuck Schumer have been tying the insurrection – in which supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election result of Joe Biden’s victory – to the Republican attack on voter rights across the country.
The Guardian’s Sam Levine has more on what Republicans have done across the country in terms of voting restrictions:
Meanwhile, here is what McConnell said about the insurrection, one year ago:
Andy Kim
(@AndyKimNJ)Remember what Republican leaders said before amnesia set in. I took notes that night:
Mitch McConnell (Jan6): “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people…They tried to disrupt our democracy, they failed…This failed insurrection.” THREAD
Andy Kim
(@AndyKimNJ)Senator McConnell: “Former President Trump’s actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty. There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”
08:49
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer was on CBS reflecting on the 6 January attack on the US Capitol, when he was “within 30ft of those rioters”. He recounted how a Capitol police officer in bulletproof vest, carrying a sub-machine gun, grabbed him by the collar and said: “Senator, we are in danger”.
“When democracy is in danger, it often starts with a mob,” Schumer said. “Not everyone is part of the mob, but people excuse the mob. People egg on the mob. Donald Trump is still doing it, and we’re seeing violence still right now, threats of violence, against election workers, poll workers, across the country.”
CBS Mornings
(@CBSMornings)“If we don’t believe in the integrity of our elections, what happens to our democracy?”: @SenSchumer says he is worried about Americans’ mistrust in future elections — and some lawmakers’ willingness to forget last year’s violent attack on the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/udLMAJrqSl
Updated
08:34
An interesting tidbit coming out of the Today Show interview with Liz Cheney, the vice-chair of the special House committee investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol, is that she said she is looking forward to former vice-president Mike Pence cooperating with the committee – as well as continuing the cooperation the committee has been having with Pence’s team.
“Former vice-president Pence was a hero on January 6,” Cheney said. “He refused the pressures of the former president, he did his duty and the nation should be very grateful for the actions he took that day. We look forward to continuing the cooperation we’ve had from members of the former vice president’s team and look forward to his cooperation.”
As former vice-president, Pence was serving as president of the Senate one year ago when the insurrectionists stormed the Capitol. He had been unwilling to go along with Donald Trump and his plan to commandeer Pence’s largely ceremonial role at the joint session of Congress for the certification of the 2020 presidential election result of Joe Biden’s victory.
That day, Trump supporters chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” and Pence was evacuated along with other high-ranking members of Congress. But later, Pence has done his best to not talk about the attack – or speak ill of Trump whatsoever, staying consistent along party lines.
Updated
08:22
Here’s more from Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the special House committee investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol, who was on the Today Show this morning.
She told Savannah Guthrie that our institutions “only held because of people who were willing to stand up against the pressure from former president Trump, people in his own Department of Justice … elected officials at the state level who stood up to him and the law enforcement officers here at the Capitol.”
“We came very close, and we need to recognize how important it is that the system depends on individuals and that it never happens again,” Cheney said.
Guthrie asked Cheney if she thought our democracy was still in a fragile state. Cheney replied, “The threat continues.”
“Donald Trump continues to make the same claims that he knows caused violence on January 6 and it’s very important, if you look at what’s happening in my own party, the Republican party, rather than reject what happened on the 6th, reject the lies about the election and make clear that a president who engaged in those activities can never be president again – unfortunately, too many in my own party are embracing the former president, looking the other way and refusing to minimize the danger,” Cheney said. “That’s how democracies die and we simply cannot let that happen.”
Updated
08:08
Liz Cheney: Trump’s conduct on day of attack was ‘a supreme dereliction of duty’
Hello, live blog readers.
Today marks the one-year anniversary of one of the worst days in US history: the 6 January attack on the US Capitol. The day a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election result of Joe Biden’s victory – clashing with police, destroying property and leaving five people dead.
In his remarks from the Capitol steps today, Biden is expected to lay out the “singular responsibility” that Trump has for the “chaos and carnage” of that day, according to the White House.
Though his attorney general, Merrick Garland, may have disappointed some critics calling for swifter and harsher justice – in particular for the former president – with his speech yesterday detailing the justice department investigation, Biden’s strong stance against Trump is sure to draw him favors. Biden has been “clear-eyed” about the “threat the former president represents to our democracy”, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said in a briefing on Wednesday.
The Guardian’s David Smith has more here:
Meanwhile, Liz Cheney, the vice-chair of the special House committee investigating the 6 January insurrection said live this morning that the committee looks forward to the cooperation of former vice-president Mike Pence – who had to be evacuated from the chambers that day, as many in the mob were chanting, “Hang Mike Pence”.
She also said said Trump’s conduct on the day was “a supreme dereliction of duty”.
Updated