Capitol Report: Congress returns to task of confirming Biden’s victory after protesters storm Capitol

“To that end … we have decided we should proceed tonight at the Capitol once it is cleared for use,” Pelosi added.

The building was first penetrated around 2 p.m. Eastern, and it was shortly before 6 p.m. that the House sergeant at arms told reporters that the Capitol had been cleared. Capitol police engaged in an armed standoff with protesters who had made their way to the entrance of the House chamber, according to multiple reports from inside the building.

See: Watch: Hundreds of Trump supporters storm Capitol Hill, break fences and fight with police

Earlier Wednesday afternoon, President Donald Trump continued to insist without evidence that his loss was the result of widespread election fraud. “We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved,” Trump said. “Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy.”

The president later told his supporters in a video message on Twitter that “you have to go home now. We have to have peace,” while continuing to claim that “we had an election that was stolen from us.”

Shortly before Congress was forced to recess, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell forcefully argued that it was Congress’s duty to confirm President-elect Biden’s election victory Wednesday afternoon, despite the formal objections of dozens of congressional Republicans and protests in support of Trump that later turned violent.

“We cannot simply declare ourselves a national board of elections on steroids,” McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said. “The voters, the courts and the states have all spoken. They’ve all spoken. If we overrule them, it would damage our Republic forever.”

“This election, actually, was not unusually close,” he added. “The Electoral College margin is almost identical to what it was in 2016. … If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral.”

Every presidential election cycle, a joint session of Congress is convened to certify the results of the race in each individual state. Typically a formality, the proceedings took on more drama this year as Republicans planned to object to the results of races in several battleground states that voted for Biden.

Following the storming of the Capitol building, several Republicans speculated that plans to object to the results would be greatly curtailed. Congress had been only able to begin debate of Arizona’s electoral results when the violence began.

“I would like us to finish Arizona. We have another hour of debate,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, told Fox News. “But I think in light of what transpired … it may bring people together in a different light.”

Arizona’s Republican Party head, Kelli Ward, had seized on the delay, suggesting in a tweet that Congress, amid the violent disturbance, were in adjournment and thus the certified election results should be sent back to states for reconsideration.

“F— you we are,” retorted Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat and also from Arizona. “Democracy will not die tonight.”

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky agreed, telling reporters that “there’s going to be probably 30 or 40 more minutes of debate, and one vote.”

Rep. Paul Gosar, an Arizona Republican, objected in writing to Arizona’s results, along with 60 of his colleagues, and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas supported the move with his signature. Federal law states that if both a House member and a senator object to a slate of state electors, the joint session will recess and both the Senate and House of Representatives will debate the question for a maximum of two hours.

Republicans argued that the electoral votes were invalid because state election officials and courts in many battleground states ordered modifications to election protocol to protect voters from the COVID-19 epidemic. Though many states that voted for Trump also made such changes this year, the GOP only planned to object to electors from states that Biden won.

Both the House and the Senate were set to debate each contested states’ results for up to two hours, but were forced to put those sessions on pause after protesters stormed the Capitol. It is unclear when the sessions will resume.

Prior to the violent disruption of the proceedings, they were expected to go into the early hours of Thursday morning if Republicans forced two hours of debate for each of the half-dozen states that they seek to depict as in question.

After that time, each chamber will hold a vote by simple majority on whether to accept or reject the objection. Given that McConnell and several other prominent Republicans in the Senate had urged their colleagues not to mount these challenges, it’s unlikely that even a Republican Senate would vote to accept such an objection.

With Democrats in control of the House of Representatives, it’s a still greater stretch to imagine that the body would vote to reject any state’s slate of Biden electors. According to federal law, for a state’s slate of electors to be rejected, both houses of Congress would have to agree to do so.

Speaking to supportive demonstrators outside the White House, Trump again claimed Wednesday that Pence has the power to unilaterally accept or reject presidential election results from any state he chooses, though that idea has been rejected by constitutional scholars and even, according to news reports, the vice president himself.

“All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify, and we become president,” Trump told his supporters.

This idea has been rejected by constitutional scholars and the vice president himself. “It is my considered judgement that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” Pence said in a statement released shortly before the session.