Correspondent in Washington
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“Today a year ago, in this sacred place, democracy was attacked.” The president of the United States, whose inauguration tried to prevent a mob incited by Donald Trump Exactly one year ago, he commemorated that bleak journey with a speech to the nation from the very Capitol that was looted. Joe Biden has condemned this January 6 In 2022 the actions of his predecessor in office, whom he has accused of resigning his obligations while enjoying the spectacle of looting from comfortably from an office in the White House.
«He is not just a former president, he is a failed former presidentBiden said, emphasizing the last word of that sentence. “He has never been able to prove his false allegations of fraud.”
Later, Biden described Trump as the “true instigator” of the insurrection and the looting of the Capitol.
«The truth is that the previous president has created a web of lies about the 2020 elections, and he does so because he puts the exercise of power before principles, because he puts his interest before those of this nation, because his own hurt ego he cares more than this country, and because he cannot assume that he failed, “Biden said in a harsh speech in which he also asked Republicans to distance themselves from Trump and his conspiracy theories about electoral fraud.
Biden said, enraged, at times visibly angry, that January 6, 2021 was “the first time that a president who loses an election tries to prevent a peaceful transfer of powers with a violent mob looting the Capitol, although they failed, it must be said clearly: they failed. “We are going to make sure that this type of attack never happens again,” said the president today.
Biden first let the vice president speak, who was previously a senator for California and was on Capitol Hill that January 6, although she left before the looting. Kamala Harris compared Jan 6, 2021 the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor or the terrorist attacks of 9/11. “This is the fragility of democracy, if we are not alert, if we do not defend it, democracy will not last, it will collapse and fail,” said Harris. “The fact that we were close to having an election reversed that day shows how fragile democracy can be.”
Are we going to accept political violence as the norm?
Biden made numerous references to Donald Trump and his false allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 elections. “Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as the norm?” The president wondered. “Are we going to be a nation that lives not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies?”
The president made the speech from what is known as the National Hall of Statues, surrounded by the pantheon dedicated to the heroes of the American country, under the gaze of the sculptures of Thomas Edison, Henry Clay, Fray Junípero and Barry Goldwater, among others. The House of Representatives met there for half a century, before the Civil War.
This room was also crossed by the insurgents of January 6, 2021, with their caps and Trump flags, one of them carrying the lectern that had been stolen from another room, smilingly greeting the cameras. Was destroyed, like the rest of the Capitol, in the previous looting, that of the war against the English in 1812.
To honor the day, the House of Representatives, where there were shots during the looting, has canceled its session. The Senate maintains a very short agenda, without voting, which will resume on Monday.
During days, Donald Trump He threatened to speak at a press conference this January 6 to offer his version of events and continue to spread his denied theories about electoral fraud, but the Republicans dissuaded him, and he canceled it at the last minute.
Jail sentences for insurgents
More of 700 insurgents they have been detained, and the FBI is looking for another 350 to try. A good portion have been convicted after pleading guilty, and the longest jail term to date is five years, for beating police officers guarding the Capitol.
That January 6, something that usually occurs every four years was going to take place: the two houses of the Capitol were going to certify Biden’s victory in the 2020 elections. Trump, however, pressured his party to prevent it, alleging a fraud for which he never provided convincing evidence. He summoned his supporters to a rally outside the White House and then invited them to march to the Capitol, which they surrounded and was looted later, with a total balance of nine dead, five of them policemen, of which four later committed suicide.
As Biden has recalled in his speech, the mob up built a gallows before the Capitol to hang Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, who was presiding over the Senate on that day.
Absent from this grim commemoration were Republican leaders, including those who distanced themselves from the former president after the looting. The Republican leader in the Senate did not even receive the president, Mitch McConnell, which publicly repudiated Trump and has become the target of his harshest attacks ever since.
www.abc.es
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism