Congress confirms that Trump won the election unchallenged

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress certified President-elect Donald Trump who wins the election in 2024 i cases Monday, which passed without challenge, in stark contrast January 6, 2021, violence when his mob of supporters stormed the US Capitol.

Lawmakers met under heavy security and a winter blizzard to meet the date required by law to certify the election. Layers of tall black fences flanked the Capitol complex in a stark reminder of what happened four years agoas a defeated Trump sent rally goers to “fight like hell” in what remained the most gruesome attack at the seat of American democracy in 200 years.

This time the whole process ended quickly and without fuss. One by one a tally of the electoral votes from each state was read to polite applause in the house, no one objecting and the results was certified.

“Today, America’s democracy stood,” said Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, after presiding over the session — like her office’s role — and her own defeat of Trump.

But Trump’s legacy from 2021 leaves an extraordinary fact: The candidate who tried to overturn the previous election won this time and will legally return to the White House, his inauguration in two weeks.

While Monday’s result revived an American tradition that launches the peaceful transfer of presidential power, it is unclear whether January 6, 2021 was the anomaly or whether this year’s calm will be the extreme.

Trump denies he lost four years ago, mulls staying beyond the constitutional two-term limit for the White House and promise to pardon some of them more than 1,250 people who have pleaded guilty or been convicted of crimes for the Capitol siege. He calls 6 January 2021 a “day of love”.

Trump said online Monday that Congress confirmed a “MAJOR” election victory, calling it “A BIG MOMENT IN HISTORY.”

Yet American democracy has proven resilient, and Congress, the branch of government closest to the people, came together to affirm Americans’ choices.

With pomp and tradition, the day unfolded as it has countless times before, with the arrival of ceremonial mahogany boxes filled with ballot papers from the states—boxes that staff frantically grabbed and protected when Trump’s mob stormed the building the last time.

Senators walked across the Capitol — which four years ago was filled with roaming rioters, some defecating and threatening leaders, others engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police — to the House to begin confirming the vote.

The house’s chaplain, Margaret Kibben, who led a prayer during the violence four years ago, made a simple request as the hall opened to “shine your light in the darkness.”

Harris stood at the podium where the then speaker Nancy Pelosi was abruptly brought to safety last time as the mob closed in and lawmakers scrambled to put on gas masks and escape and shots rang out as police killed Ashley Babbitta Trump supporter trying to crawl through a broken glass door toward the chamber.

And Harris certified his own defeat — the same way Democrat Al Gore did in 2001, Republican Richard Nixon did in 1961 and then-Vice Pres. Mike Pence did four years ago.

When Harris read the tally, the chamber erupted in applause: first the Republicans for Trump’s 312 electoral votes, then the Democrats for Harris’s 226.

Vice President-elect JD Vance had joined his former Senate colleagues in the front row, and was surrounded afterwards with congratulatory handshakes, hugs and pictures.

Within half an hour the process was complete.

There is new procedural rules in place after what happened four years ago, when Republicans repeated Trump’s lie that the election was fraudulent and challenged the results their own states had certified.

Under changes to Act on counting of electionsit now requires a fifth of lawmakers, rather than just one in each chamber, to challenge election results.

But none of that was necessary.

Republicans who challenged the election results in 2020 now express greater confidence in American elections after Trump defeatedHarris.

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who led the House floor challenge in 2021, said at the time people were so stunned by the outcome of the election and there were “lots of allegations and allegations.”

This time, he said, “I think the win was so decisive. … It stifled most of it.”

And Democrats frustrated with Trump’s victory nevertheless accepted the choice of American voters, and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said his side of the aisle is not “infested” with suffragettes.

“There are no pro-choice deniers on our side of the aisle,” Jeffries said last week on the first day of the new Congress to applause from Democrats in the room.

Harris said afterward that Jan. 6 this time was “about what should be the norm and what the American people should be able to take for granted, which is one of the most important pillars of our democracy: the peaceful transfer of power. ”

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, “gliding in the blood of others.”

Managers of Oath keepers and Proud boys has been convicted of outrageous conspiracy and sentenced to long prison terms. Many others faced prison, probation, house arrest or other punishments.

Pence, who had been rushed into hiding that day when rioters threatened to hang him for his refusal to reject Biden’s victory, wrote online that he welcomed what he called “the return of order and civility” to the certification process.

Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of inciting a riot that day, but was acquitted by the Senate. At the time, GOP leader Mitch McConnell blamed Trump for the siege, but said his guilt was up to the courts to determine.

Federal prosecutors subsequently issued a indictment in four counts by Trump to work to overturn the election, but special counsel Jack Smith withdrew the case last month after Trump won re-election, complying with Justice Department guidelines that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted.

Biden awarded in one of his outgoing acts The President’s Citizen 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 a Jan. 6, 2021, investigation.

Trump has said those who worked on the committee on Jan. 6 should be locked inside.

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Associated Press writers Fatima Hussein and Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.