By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress is set to meet on Monday to formally certify Republican Donald Trump’s election as president, exactly four years after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol in a failed bid to block the certification of his 2020 election loss.
President-elect Trump continues to falsely claim that his 2020 defeat was the result of widespread fraud, and had warned throughout his 2024 campaign that he harbored similar concerns, until his Nov. 5 defeat of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Unofficial results show Trump winning 312 electoral college votes to Harris’s 226. His Republicans also captured a majority in the U.S. Senate and held a narrow edge in the House of Representatives, which will give Trump leeway in implementing his agenda of tax cuts and a crackdown on immigrants living in the country illegally when he is sworn in on Jan. 20.
Trump has also said he plans to pardon some of the more than 1,500 people charged with taking part in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, when a mob fought with police, smashing its way in through windows and doors and chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” referring to Trump’s then-vice president, in a failed bid to stop Congress from certifying Democratic President Joe Biden’s victory.
In the Jan. 6, 2021, melee at the Capitol, rioters surged past police barricades, assaulting about 140 officers and causing more than $2.8 million in damage. Multiple police officers who battled protesters died in the weeks that followed, some by suicide.
As a result of that day’s violence, Congress passed legislation late in 2022 bolstering guardrails to ensure the certification process is administered in a legal manner.
Many of the changes were directly in response to Trump’s actions leading up to and including Jan. 6, 2021.
For example, the new law makes clear that the vice president’s role is largely ceremonial.
Any objections to a state’s results must now be submitted by at least one-fifth of the members of the House and the Senate before triggering debates over the objections. The House has 435 members and the Senate has 100.
Previously, it had required just one member from each chamber to object to a state’s certification.
Meanwhile, the law specifies that the choice of electors must occur according to state laws enacted prior to Election Day, with governors of the states submitting lists of electors.
Trump and his surrogates in 2021 had attempted to recruit alternate electors sympathetic to his cause.
A large security fence has been erected around the Capitol complex, ahead of Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Matthew Lewis)
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