By LISA MASCARO, MARY CLARE JALONICK, FARNOUSH AMIRI and MATT BROWN Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress convened Monday under heavy security and a snowstorm to certify President-elect Donald Trump’s election, the legacy of Jan. 6 leaving an extraordinary fact: The candidate who tried to overturn the previous election won this time and is legitimately returning to power.
Lawmakers gathered as layers of tall black fencing flank the U.S. Capitol complex in a stark reminder of what happened four years ago, when a defeated Trump sent his mob to “fight like hell” in what became the most gruesome attack on the seat of American democracy in 200 years. It is the tightest national security level possible.
“The House comes to order,” Vice President Kamala Harris said, opening the joint session as the role of the office.
That launched the reading of the electoral results from the states, which came swiftly and without unrest. One by one, the state results were read aloud by the tellers as senators and representatives sat in seats in the House chamber.
Polite applause came after each one from the Republican side of the aisle. where Vice President-elect JD Vance joined his former colleagues. Within minutes, the process was almost halfway done.
No violence, protests or even procedural objections in Congress this time. Republicans who challenged the 2020 election results when Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden have no qualms this year after he defeatedHarris.
And Democrats frustrated by Trump’s 312-226 Electoral College victory nevertheless accept the choice of the American voters. Even the winter snow blanketing the grounds didn’t interfere with Jan. 6, the day set by law to certify the vote.
Trump said in a Monday post online that Congress was certifying a “GREAT” election victory and called it “A BIG MOMENT IN HISTORY.”
The day’s return to a U.S. tradition that launches the peaceful transfer of presidential power comes with an asterisk as Trump prepares to take office in two weeks with a revived sense of authority. He denies that he lost four years ago, muses about staying beyond the Constitution’s two-term White House limit and promises to pardon some of the more than 1,250 people who have pleaded guilty or were convicted of crimes for the Capitol siege.
What’s unclear is if Jan. 6, 2021, was the anomaly, the year Americans violently attacked their own government, or if this year’s expected calm becomes the outlier. The U.S. is struggling to cope with its political and cultural differences at a time when democracy worldwide is threatened. Trump calls Jan. 6, 2021, a “day of love.”
“We should not be lulled into complacency,” said Ian Bassin, executive director of the cross-ideological nonprofit Protect Democracy.
He and others have warned that returning to power an emboldened leader who has demonstrated his unwillingness to give up the office “is an unprecedentedly dangerous move for a free country to voluntarily take.”
Biden, speaking Sunday at events at the White House, said, “We’ve got to get back to the basic, normal transfer of power,” the president said. What Trump did last time, Biden said, “was a genuine threat to democracy. I’m hopeful we’re beyond that now.”
Still, American democracy has proven to be resilient, and Congress, the branch of government closest to the people, was coming together to affirm the choice of Americans.
With pomp and tradition, the day unfolded as it has countless times before, with the arrival of ceremonial mahogany boxes filled with the electoral certificates from the states — boxes that staff were frantically grabbing and protecting as Trump’s mob stormed the building last time.
Senators walked across the Capitol — which four years ago had filled with roaming rioters, some defecating and menacingly calling out for leaders, others engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police — to the House to begin certifying the vote.
Harris presided over the counting, as is the requirement for the vice president, and certify her own defeat — much the way Democrat Al Gore did in 2001 and Republican Richard Nixon in 1961.
She stood at the dais where then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi was abruptly rushed to safety last time as the mob closed in and lawmakers fumbled to put on gas masks and flee, and shots rang out as police killed Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter trying to climb through a broken glass door toward the chamber.
The House chaplain, Margaret Kibben, who delivered a prayer during the mayhem four years ago, gave a simple request as the chamber opened to “shine your light in the darkness.”
There are new procedural rules in place in the aftermath of what happened four years ago, when Republicans parroting Trump’s lie that the election was fraudulent challenged the results their own states had certified.
Under changes to the Electoral Count Act, it now requires one-fifth of lawmakers, instead of just one in each chamber, to raise any objections to election results. With security as tight as it is for the Super Bowl or the Olympics, law enforcement is on high alert for intruders. No tourists will be allowed.
But none of that is expected to be necessary.
Republicans, who met with Trump behind closed doors at the White House before Jan. 6, 2021, to craft a complex plan to challenge his election defeat, have accepted his win this time.
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who led the House floor challenge in 2021, said people at the time were so astonished by the election’s outcome and there were “lots of claims and allegations.”
This time, he said, “I think the win was so decisive…. It stifled most of that.”
Democrats, who have raised symbolic objections in the past, including during the disputed 2000 election that Gore lost to George W. Bush and ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, have no intention of objecting. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries has said the Democratic Party is not “infested” with election denialism.
“There are no election deniers on our side of the aisle,” Jeffries said on the first day of the new Congress, to applause from Democrats in the chamber.
“You see, one should love America when you win and when you lose. That’s the patriotic thing to do,” Jeffries said.
Last time, far-right militias helped lead the mob to break into the Capitol in a war-zone-like scene. Officers have described being crushed and pepper-sprayed and beaten with Trump flag poles, “slipping in other people’s blood.”
Leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys have been convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Many others faced prison, probation, home confinement or other penalties.
Democrats issued statements decrying the day, but many Republicans held firm in their views. Republican Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia posted Monday morning about the “thousands of peaceful grandmothers” at the Capitol that day. He said he was thankful that Trump has promised pardons.
Trump was impeached by the House on the charge of inciting an insurrection that day but was acquitted by the Senate. At the time, GOP leader Mitch McConnell blamed Trump for the siege but said his culpability was for the courts to decide.
Federal prosecutors subsequently issued a four-count indictment of Trump for working to overturn the election, including for conspiracy to defraud the United States, but special counsel Jack Smith was forced to pare back the case once the Supreme Court ruled that a president has broad immunity for actions taken in office.
Smith last month withdrew the case after Trump won reelection, adhering to Justice Department guidelines that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted.
Biden, in one of his outgoing acts, awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who had been the chair and vice chair of the congressional committee that conducted an investigation into Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump has said those who worked on the Jan. 6 committee should be locked up.
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Associated Press writers Fatima Hussein and Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.