Timeline: Siege at the United States Capitol

I've compiled this timeline of events relating to what occurred at our Capitol on Wednesday, January 6, 2021. It's derived from multiple sources, and attempts to sequentially describe major events that transpired that day, and in the days previous and following. In reviewing the timeline, my hope is that we can walk away with a better understanding of the factors that contributed to the siege at the United States Capitol. It's a work in progress, and will continue to be updated as information becomes available. I welcome (constructive) feedback, and recommended objective edits/additions.

Timeline:

November 5, 2020

Jessica Marie Watkins — an Ohio bartender who had formed her own small, self-styled militia group and had joined Oath Keepers, according to prosecutors — begins recruiting and organizing in early November for an “operation.”

Days after the election, Watkins sends text messages to a number of individuals who have expressed interest in joining her group, which calls itself the Ohio State Regular Militia.

“I need you fighting fit by innaugeration,” she tells one recruit.

She also asks a recruit to download Zello, an app that allows a cellphone to operate like a push-to-talk walkie-talkie, saying her group uses it “for operations.”

November 14:  At the Million MAGA March, Ali Alexander says:  "This is truly systematic and systemic cheating and it is unique. It is evil. It is corrupt. It is in league with some of our worst enemies that are painted as people that we need to appease, like Beijing, China, the Communist Party, and we don't need to appease them. And so we really, really, really have to fight this now. We can't wait for next year or reforms or anything like that. This isn’t basic corruption. There's a coup going on. And worse, our mainstream media has partnered with authoritarian forces and violent thugs in the streets. This is a perfect situation of good versus evil. 

SEAN LIN: Do you think it’s treason -- you said more than just a coup?  

ALEXANDER: It's at least sedition. I'll say that. I’ll at least say that. "

...

"If you're sitting on the couch, if you're just tweeting, we're gonna -- the republic's gonna die. Everyone has to sign up for an email at StoptheSteal.us and get involved. We’ve got to put bodies in the streets and make the American oligarchs scared of what we’ll do. "

Late November:  Watkins speaks in apocalyptic terms about the prospect of Joe Biden’s being sworn in as president on Jan. 20.

“If he is, our way of life as we know it is over. Our Republic would be over. Then it is our duty as Americans to fight, kill and die for our rights. . . . If Biden get the steal, none of us have a chance in my mind. We already have our neck in the noose. They just haven’t kicked the chair yet.”

December 1, 2020: While the President’s supporters continue to ratchet up calls of martial law and use of force, Republicans beg the President to tamp down his rhetoric, concerned that it will lead to violence. 

On Parler, members share designs for a T-shirt inspired by Mr. Trump’s presidential debate comments. It reads: “Proud Boys standing by.”

Fervent Trump supporters begin to heed a Trump’s rallying cry. Kylie Jane Kremer, founder of a Stop the Steal group banned by Facebook, picks up the notice about the march and ran with it. “The calvary (sic) is coming, Mr President!” she says.  Trump retweets Kremer’s post, saying: “A great honor!”

To all these weak-kneed Republicans I say, what would you do if somebody broke into your house and stole something and they were -- well, I don’t want to say still in your front yard because I know what we’d do. Let’s say they made it out to the road. I don't want to be accused of anything yet. Yet. Let them hear that. Yet. What if somebody stole something from your house, and they’d made it out in the street. Would you pursue? Hell yeah. We have a moral obligation to pursue them, don't we?

Leaders of a Stop the Steal group writes in a text to supporters, “We came up with the idea to occupy just outside the CAPITOL on Jan 6th." They call the event the “Wild Protest” and created a dedicated website for it, WildProtest. com (that’s since been taken down). Calls to action grow increasingly violent. On the Oath Keepers forum, where former and current pro-Trump military personnel congregate, members attested they were “ready to die for my country once again” in any effort to stop the certification.

On the TheDonald forum, plans grew increasingly specific: posters discussed that there are only 2,000 Capitol police members, a number they can easily overwhelm. Floorplans were posted alongside directives. “Find the tunnels. Arrest the worst traitors,” one posted. One person planning on attending the rally wrote a post titled, “Today I told my kids Goodbye.”

The Long Island chapter of the Proud Boys posts that Trump supporters have been “waiting for the green light from the President.”

“Everyone who said ‘Mr. President, just say when?’ He just did,” the post says.

Ali Alexander speaks on the The Pro America Report with Ed Martin on KCBQ in San Diego. Martin is a pro-Trump commentator who was on the Catholics for Trump advisory board for the president’s reelection campaign:  "What we need more than anything right now is we need fighters. We absolutely need fighters. We need to tool the government against the institutions that are leading to our persecution, and they hope to have gulags for us. I mean, this is no exaggeration. The hour is now. So I would say is encourage the fighters, support the fighters, become a fighter yourself by taking time off of work or giving paid time off to your employees to participate in these acts of protest. We don't do events with Stop the Steal. We do protests. We're petitioning our government to do certain actions that we expect of them. It's in our social contract. We should have trust in a legitimate government, and our government's not acting legitimate. So I would say the thing for me is -- to fight, you know, and when you get exhausted to get up again and keep fighting, you know? That's the only way that we teach the other side. You know, you teach a bully to stop hitting you by punching him in the nose. We've got to punch the left in the nose and we've got to stop being nice about it."

December 27: Trump tweets, “See you in Washington, DC, on January 6th. Don’t miss it. Information to follow.” 

"Don't forget, there are three subways leading to and from the Capital that Congress uses to escape. Hypothetically speaking, if those were occupied or sabotaged, they'd have to come out and face us in order to leave," a user named "Free Speech Master" responds.

A map is posted showing entrances and exits to the Capitol and the tunnels that connect it to nearby House and Senate office buildings.

"Black X's are for those ready for action if Congress tries to certify the steal. There's 535 politicians and ~3500 guards," a poster under the username "The Mutualist" writes.

The map is reposted over the next several days. Some users expressed the belief that taking the Capitol would lead to a successful coup, because "all the other agencies… are directly under the control of Trump."

An anonymous post on TheDonald.win ahead of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.obtained by NBC News

"Bring handcuffs and zipties to DC," reads another post from a user named CommunismSucks. "No more tolerating 'elected' officials who hate our country. January 6th is the chance to restore this country. Barging into the Capitol through multiple entryways is the surest way to have our bases covered and apprehend these traitors."

“I’m the guy who came up with the idea of January 6 when I was talking with Congressman Gosar, Congressman Andy Biggs, and Congressman Mo Brooks. So we’re the four guys who came up with a January 6 event — #DoNotCertify — and it was to build momentum and pressure, and then on the day change hearts and minds of congresspeoples who weren’t yet decided, or saw everyone outside and said, ‘I can’t be on the other side of that mob,’” Alexander says in the livestream.

On Parler, where the the far-right organization known as the Proud Boys official account has more than 340,000 followers, Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, says that the organization will be able to put a thousand “boots on the ground” and “turn out in record numbers on Jan. 6 but this time with a twist… We will not be wearing our traditional Black and Yellow. We will be incognito and we will be spread across downtown DC in smaller teams. And who knows….we might dress in all BLACK for the occasion.”

Joe Biggs, a prominent member of Proud Boys, posts a similar message to his followers on Parler and directing his statements at "Antifa," in which he states, among other things, “we will not be attending DC in colors. We will be blending in as one of you. You won’t see us. You’ll even think we are you . . .We are going to smell like you, move like you, and look like you. The only thing we’ll do that’s us is think like us! Jan 6th is gonna be epic.”

After receiving the budget for the January 6th event at the ellipse, Wren instructs Chafian, via text, to hold off on printing event-related slogans “until we decide what the messaging is and we have no clue on timing because it all depends on the votes that day so we won’t know timing for a few more days.” The “timing” appears to be a reference to Congress’ January 6th vote to certify the election results.

December 30: During an appearance on Focus Talk, which airs on the pro-Trump Epoch Media Group television network NTD (New Tang Dynasty), Ali Alexander says:  "Yes, it's — we are in a fight of good versus evil, of light versus the darkness and a global order over sovereign citizens. That is the fight before us. And a lot of us thought, well, this fight was coming decades later. It is here now and we must do brave acts and -- but I will tell you this: What I have found and what I read about in the good book and the history of the greatest countries is that when a small minority does the right thing, the majority's hearts and minds are moved and the bureaucrats and the politicians react to that. And so I believe that they're one in the same. I believe that this is a metaphysical fight and we are channeling all energy in heaven and on earth towards a favorable outcome. I intend on winning and I will not leave room for doubt. But I will prepare for a poor outcome and we will have vengeance if we have traitors." 

"If you do not stand up and fight now, you are signing your road and your ticket to serfdom. And -- so you must fight now. And it's inconvenient and it has caught us by surprise. But it won't take a majority of the American public. It may take 10 million of us. Because the system needs slaves. They don't want to kill us. They need slaves."

…

"We are creatures who crave creativity and expression and individualism. And that's what liberty is about. The idea that we can all do our own thing together in their system. They don't even know this. It has killed a hundred million people in a century, a hundred million people. And it's going to kill many, many — billions more if we let them go through this year or this next year with their plans, with their agenda. And so I would say stand up now or you're already on your way to the gulags. There are many Jews that marched to the camps thinking that they were just camps, not knowing that they were death camps. We cannot march to these camps, whether they're digital, whether they are physical or whether they're just taking our rights and our liberties and our churches. We cannot. We cannot march to their ghetto. They will kill us."

"The people are stronger than the government. The people are stronger than the tyrants. And I know that. And if I have to act as a sacrifice, my energy, my emotions, my life, my money, whatever, I will give that so that my brothers and my sisters, children of God, can wake up and fight tyrants because I think we can do it peacefully. Heaven forbid it has to go further. But these are our rights endowed at our creating moment."

December 31: A "written request" sent from Mayor Bowser and D.C. security and emergency officials Christopher Rodriguez for National Guard assistance to the city’s police and fire departments. The memo requested that “No DCNG personnel will be armed during this mission.” According to the memo, the D.C. National Guard’s primary mission will be crowd management and assistance with blocking vehicles at traffic posts. There will be six crowd management teams to manage crowds at “specified Metro stations and a team to assist 30 “designated traffic posts,”

Acting Attorney General Rosen and his deputy, Richard Donoghue meet with Jeffrey Clark, assistant attorney general of the environment and natural resources division, whom Trump has also named acting head of the civil division in September 2020. Rosen and Donoghue tell Clark to stop pushing Trump’s false conspiracy theories about election fraud. Unbeknownst to Rosen and Donoghue, Clark has been meeting privately with Trump, who has embraced Clark’s theories and support.

January 1, 2021: Trump Retweets: “The (cavalry) is coming, Mr. President,” sharing details about the rally.

The FBI and the New York City Police Department pass information to U.S. Capitol Police about the possibility of violence during the protests Wednesday against the counting of the Electoral College vote, and the FBI visits more than a dozen extremists already under investigation to urge them not to travel to Washington.

Louie Gohmert, a Republican Congress member from Texas, responds in inflammatory terms to news that his federal lawsuit seeking to force the vice president Mike Pence to block certification of Joe Biden’s victory has been dismissed.

“The bottom line is, the court is saying, ‘We’re not going to touch this. You have no remedy’,” he tells Newsmax. “Basically, in effect, the ruling would be that you got to go to the streets and be as violent as Antifa.”

Trump himself tweets, “The BIG Protest Rally in Washington, D.C. will take place at 11:00 A.M. on January 6th. Locational details to follow. StopTheSteal!” 

Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the far-right organization known as the Proud Boys, shares a cryptic post on the messaging app Telegram: “What if we invade it?”

The message is sent to his more than 7,000 followers on the app, with the first reply reading “January 6th is D day in America.”

An internal Capitol Police intelligence report warns that angry Trump supporters could attack "Congress itself." The 12-page report describes a scenario with the President's enraged backers trying to stop Biden's certification and overturn the election results.

DoD confirms with U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) that there is no request for DoD support.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), addresses a rally in Georgia. “We will not go quietly into the night. We will defend liberty. And we are going to win.”

Mid-Day: After meeting with Trump, Assistant Attorney General Clark informs Acting Attorney General Rosen that Trump intends to replace Rosen with Clark, who can then try to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College results. He says that Rosen can stay on as his deputy attorney general, leaving Rosen speechless. Rosen works with White House counsel Pat Cipollone to secure a meeting with Trump that evening.

6:00pm: Rosen, Donoghue, and Clark meet at the White House with Trump, Cipollone, his deputy Patrick Philbin, and other lawyers. Trump has Rosen and Clark present their competing arguments to him. Top lawyers in the Justice Department tell Trump that if he fires Rosen, all of them will resign. Three hours after the meeting began, Trump decides that Clark’s plan would fail and allows Rosen to remain as acting attorney general.

January 4: DoD agrees to provide 340 members of the D.C. National Guard to Washington, D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department. Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller also authorizes the Army secretary to deploy a quick reaction force of 40 personnel “if additional support is requested by civilian authorities.”

Secretary of Defense Chris Miller sends a memorandum to Secretary of the Army Ryan C. McCarthy prohibiting deployment of D.C. Guard members with weapons, helmets, body armor or riot control agents without defense secretary approval. McCarthy retained the power to deploy the quick reaction force “only as a last resort.”

Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund submits a a request to declare a state of emergency and authorize a request for National Guard support.  Capitol Police Board consisting of (Paul D. Irving, the House sergeant-at-arms, Michael C. Stenger, the Senate sergeant-at-arms, and  J. Brett Blanton, the architect of the Capitol [claimes he was not included in these discussions], and the Capitol Police Chief [non-voting]) initially decline the request. Irving tells Sound he isn't comfortable with the "optics" of formally declaring an emergency ahead of the expected protests.  

Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund asks MG Walker (Commander of the D.C. National Guard) to have National Guard troops at the ready:  “If I call you, will you be able to help?’ ” Sund asks.   MG Walker replies, "Yes, but I need permission. So send a formal request,’ and I never got it, until after the fact.”

Capitol Police confirm again in a call with the Secretary of the Army that there is no request for DoD help.

A senior U.S. official tells The Washington Post the military has “learned its lesson” after being rebuked over Trump’s heavy-handed response to racial justice protests last year. The official, who speaks on the condition of anonymity to discuss the details of the preparations, says the military will be “absolutely nowhere near the Capitol building” because “we don’t want to send the wrong message.”

Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio is arrested in Washington D.C. for burning a Black Lives Matter banner that he had taken from a Black church during December’s Stop the Steal rallies. He is found to be in possession of two high capacity firearm magazines, which is charged for possession.

Washington DC Mayor Bowser delivers a letter to the Acting Attorney General, Acting Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Army confirming there are no additional support requirements from the District of Columbia.

FBI personnel in Norfolk are increasingly alarmed by the online conversations they are seeing, including warlike talk around the convoys heading to the nation’s capital. One map posted online describes the rally points, declaring them a “MAGA Cavalry To Connect Patriot Caravans to StopTheSteal in D.C.” Another map shows the U.S. Congress, indicating tunnels connecting different parts of the complex. The map is headlined, “CREATE PERIMETER,”FBI field office in Norfolk, Virginia issues an explicit internal warning that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and "war”: “Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in.” 

The president’s involvement in the January 6th rally means that some speakers from the original Women for America First lineup would be dropped from that main event. So, arrangements are made to have them speak the night before, on January 5th, at a warm-up rally at Freedom Plaza.

"As of 5 January 2021, FBI Norfolk received information indicating calls for violence in response to 'unlawful lockdowns' to begin on 6 January 2021 in Washington. D.C.," the document says. "An online thread discussed specific calls for violence to include stating 'Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal."

"However," it continues, "based on known intelligence and/or specific historical observations, it is possible the protected activity could invite a violent reaction towards the subject individual or others in retaliation or with the goal of stopping the protected activity from occurring in the first instance. In the event no violent reaction occurs, FBI policy and federal law dictates that no further record to be made of the protected activity."

The Norfolk office’s report circulated within the FBI, but the bureau never issued a formal threat assessment report for the January 6 certification session. That was due, in part, to FBI and DHS’s determination that online threats such as this weren’t credible, according to the new Senate report. Representatives from both agencies note that much of the rhetoric online is ‘First Amendment protected speech’ of limited credibility…”

Rather than speak on January 6th, Alexander and Jones speak instead at a January 5 rally organized by the Eighty Percent Coalition, a group founded by Cindy Chafian, an early organizer of the January 6 event who struck the initial deal with Mr. Jones. (Note: Chaffian later says she was willing to work with Mr. Jones because “it’s unreasonable to expect to agree with everything a group or person does.”)

Alex Jones’ website Infowars .com posts a a video posted showing him telling a crowd in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C.: “We have only begun to resist the globalists. We have only begun our fight against their tyranny. They have tried to steal this election in front of everyone.”

“I don’t know how this is all going to end, but if they want to fight, they better believe they’ve got one.”

Jones’ seed money in the end was used for the January 5 rally, for which he ultimately pays about $96,000. 

General Flynn directs veiled threats to Congress while speaking at a rally. “Those of you who are feeling weak tonight, those of you who don’t have the moral fiber in your body — get some tonight because tomorrow we the people are going to be here.”

In a memorandum, Secretary of the Army McCarthy, Major General William J. Walker’s (Adjutant General, D.C. National Guard) direct superior in the chain of command, prohibits him from deploying the quick reaction force composed of 40 guardsmen on his own and says any rollout of that standby group would first require a “concept of operation,” an exceptional requirement given that the force is supposed to respond to emergencies.

10:00am: Trump supporters assembled 50 vehicles outside a nearby Kohl’s department store in Louisville. In Columbia, S.C., at a mall designated rally point “Rebel,” other Trump supporters gathered to form another caravan to Washington. A similar meetup — dubbed “Minuteman” — was planned for Springfield, Mass.

 Roger Stone—an ally of former President Donald Trump  socializes with Trump supporters outside a hotel in Washington, D.C., taking photos, shaking hands and reveling in praise. When one man asks: "We have this today, right?" Stone responds: "We shall see."

Stone is flanked by guards belonging to the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia that has previously provided security detail for him. Six of the Oath Keepers members guard Stone on January 5 and 6. They are also identified as among those who will later storm the Capitol. Two of the six men are seen with Stone during a protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court a day before the insurrection.  One of the men, Roberto Minuta, works as a bodyguard for Stone hours before the riots.  (Note:  Minuta and others affiliated with the Oath Keepers "breached the U.S. Capitol grounds, where Minuta aggressively berated and taunted U.S. Capitol police officers responsible for protecting the Capitol and the representatives inside of the Capitol).

Stone gave a speech at an evening pro-Trump rally, during which he told the crowd he will be present "shoulder to shoulder" with them the following day.

In a video he repeatedly promoted before the chaos on Capitol Hill, Stone announced he would be "speaking to the Stop The Steal peaceful protest" on January 6 to "protest the heist of the 2020 election."

Stone says he is "concerned about the safety and security of our supporters, of those who will be marching with us." He urges those who can attend the D.C. demonstrations to make donations on the now-defunct StopTheSteal.org website.

The funds, Stone say, will go towards "professional security" for protesters, as well as "staging" and "transportation." It is unclear whether the security detail in question involved right-wing militias.

2:25pm: Steve Bannon posts a Facebook update:

“TAKE ACTION. THEY ARE TRYING TO STEAL THE ELECTION,” the former senior White House adviser urges his followers in a Facebook group he runs called “Own Your Vote.”

"All hell is going to break loose tomorrow," Bannon promises listeners of his podcast -- "War Room".

President Trump meets with Acting Secretary of Defense Miller and other senior DoD officials.  Trump asks how many troops the Pentagon planned to turn out the following day. "We’re going to provide any National Guard support that the District requests,’” Miller responds.  The President replies:  "You’re going to need 10,000 people."  A/SD Miller replies:  "Maybe. But you know, someone’s going to have to ask for it."  President Trump replies:  "You do what you need to do. You do what you need to do...You’re going to need 10,000."

Eric Trump, the president’s son, makes a direct political threat to any Republican member of Congress who votes in favor of Biden’s electoral college victory at the following day’s ceremonial joint session. “I will personally work to defeat every single Republican Senator / Congressman who doesn’t stand up against this fraud – they will be primaried in their next election and they will lose.”

Georgia native and Colorado resident Cleveland Meredith makes his way to the Capitol.  He is in possession of two firearms, including one equipped with a telescopic sight, several high capacity magazines, and approximately 1,000 rounds of ammunition of various caliber, including “armor piercing” rounds. 

Jessica Marie Watkins responds with interest to an invitation to a ‘leadership only’ conference call for what is described as a “DC op.”

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) receives a call from White House Political Director Brian Jack asking him to speak at the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6. Brooks agrees.

Ali Alexander speaks with Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former senior official with Trump’s campaign, Donald Trump Jr. girlfriend, and former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle about “Stop The Steal.” 

Oath Keepers militia group stash weapons at Comfort Inn in Arlington, Virginia, as part of a so-called "Quick Reaction Force" they could activate if violence escalated that day.

Kenneth Harrelson, one of a dozen members of the Oath Keepers contributes weapons to it.  Messages sent in a Signal chat where an unidentified individual is planning to stay in the hotel on the day of January 6, "because of its close location and easy access to downtown." "He is committed to being the quick reaction force an[d] bringing the tools if something goes to hell," Thomas Caldwell, writes to the group.

The Ellipse setup costs roughly $500,000, with a concert stage, a $100,000 grass covering and thousands of feet of security structures.

Ms. Wren plays a central role in bringing together the disparate group of activists planning events on January 6. She suggests to Mr. Alexander that he reschedule his Capitol rally to 1 p.m. and put into place a list of about 30 potential speakers, including Messrs. Alexander and Jones, who had been listed on websites as associated with the day’s events, according to organizers.

After 8:15pm:  Pipe bombs are placed in the vicinity of the DNC and RNC Headquarters.

A post on TheDonald. win states:  Trump supporters should go to Washington and get “violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die.”

10:30pm:  Supporters of President Donald Trump get into a angry shouting match with other passengers on a Washington-bound American Airlines plane after they project a “Trump 2020” logo on the cabin ceiling and walls. The Trump supporters say a passenger has threatened to kill them, and there is yelling back and forth. A flight attendant intervenes, telling one passenger in the aisle to sit down. The incident occurs after American’s flight 1291 from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport lands at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., and is taxiing to the gate. Law enforcement is not called, and passengers deplane and disperse without further incident.

InfoWars posts a video that shows Alex Jones riling a crowd up again, saying: “We declare 1776 against the new world order.… We need to understand we’re under attack, and we need to understand this is 21st-century warfare and get on a war-footing….”  Alex Jones has pledged $50,000 to support the event.

Ashan Benedict, the special agent in charge of ATF’s Washington field office, puts a rapid-response unit based an hour away in suburban Virginia on standby. He tells senior Justice Department officials that an arson and explosives task force stands at the ready:  “The question mark for everybody was what happens when the speeches are over? Do they just leave to go home? Do they want to move around the city? Do they want to go to the White House? It was hard to say,” Benedict later says. “Ultimately, they went to the Capitol.”

7:30am: Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), supporter of the QAnon movement, tweets: “Today is 1776.”

President Trump calls the vice president's residence with a final, desperate plea:

“You can either go down in history as a patriot, or you can go down in history as a p***y...”

On Breitbart News Daily, Ali Alexander says: “The president's mood is he's in fighter mode and today will determine which Republicans are going to suffer his wrath going forward. That's the mood that he's in. In fact, I got a call last night from Kimberly Guilfoyle and none of us are stopping.” 

7:56am: President Trump tweets: "States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!"

"If Vice President @Mike_Pence comes through for us, we will win the Presidency," he added. "Many States want to decertify the mistake they made in certifying incorrect & even fraudulent numbers in a process NOT approved by their State Legislatures (which it must be). Mike can send it back!"

In the Oval Office, President Trump huddles with aides and family members. The president walks in and out of the dining room to check on TV coverage, hoping to gauge the size of the crowd on the Ellipse. Stephen Miller is there going over the remarks he and his team have prepared for the president to deliver at the rally. Senior White House officials Mark Meadows, Keith Kellogg and Eric Herschmann are also present, as are the president’s adult children Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump, and Kimberly Guilfoyle, Trump Jr.'s girlfriend. Guilfoyle, referring to the growing crowd on the Ellipse, tell him, “They’re just reflecting the will of the people. This is the will of the people.”

Ivanka Trump does not agree and is upset about what attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani and others have been advising her father. She says: “This is not right. It’s not right.”

11:30am: Acting Secretary of Defense participates in a tabletop exercise reviewing plans to support law enforcement agencies and response options.

11:37am: Members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group, join protesters, assembled on the Capitol lawn since 10:00am.

President Trump, in his speech, referencing Mitt Romney’s treatment during his flight, remarks: “I wonder if he enjoyed his flight in last night.”

Trump asserts that the election has been stolen and that he will never concede. He calls on the crowd to "fight like hell" and urges them to march on the Capitol.

“Our country has had enough. We will not take it any more and that’s what this is all about.”

"These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long."

“They came from all over our country,” Trump says, claiming the media and “big tech” have “rigged an election. They rigged it like they’ve never rigged an election before. ... We will stop the steal.”

"When you catch somebody in a fraud, you're allowed to go by very different rules."

“Just remember this: you’re stronger, you’re smarter, you’ve got more going than anybody,” Trump said. “And they try and demean everybody having to do with us, and you’re the real people. You’re the people that built this nation. You’re not the people that tore down our nation.”

“History is going to be made,” Trump says. “We’re going to see whether or not we have great and courageous leaders, or whether or not we have leaders that should be ashamed of themselves.” He continued with a warning: “If they do the wrong thing, we should never, ever forget that they did.”

Trump condemns “weak” and “pathetic” Republicans, and called on Vice President Mike Pence to impede Congressional certification of Biden’s win later that day. “If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election,”

“We fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

“If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,”

[R]emember this day forever!"

“Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. After this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down. We’re going to walk down any one you want, but I think right here. We’re going walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”

“Because you'll never take back our country with weakness,” he tells supporters gathered in front of the White House, “you have to show strength, and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated. Lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building. To peacefully, patriotically make your voices heard.”

Police report that roughly 300 members of the Proud Boys are outside the Capitol. About 20 minutes into President Trump's speech.

12:17pm:  "We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue -- I love Pennsylvania Avenue -- and we’re going to the Capitol and we’re going to try and give” Republicans “the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I want to thank you all. God bless you and God bless America. Thank you all for being here, this is incredible.”

Before Trump finishes his speech, approximately eight thousand people start moving up the Mall. “We’re storming the Capitol!” some yell.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley tells aides: “This is a Reichstag moment...The gospel of the Führer.”

Congress meets to certify the electoral vote, normally a quadrennial formality. But an objection by members of the House and Senate to Arizona’s result derailed the ceremony, forcing the House and Senate to debate in their separate chambers. Outside, thousands of people broke off from a Trump rally on the Mall and marched toward the Capitol, pushing past barriers that police had set up around the building.

Tina Nguyen, White House reporter: “I was standing near the intersection of Delaware and Constitution. You could see a big throng of MAGA supporters approaching from several blocks away. The police said to people there to keep moving along, and the crowd, who earlier in the day were thanking the police, started saying things like, “Just disobey! Just disobey.” It was clear they wanted to occupy the building.”

The session is brought to order by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after Vice President Mike Pence arrives. Arizona results are soon challenged by Representative Paul Gosar and Senator Ted Cruz, triggering separate two-hour debates in the House and Senate.

Vice President Mike Pence opens the joint session where he refuses to block election results and certified Joe Biden's victory.

On the Mall, a makeshift wooden gallows, with stairs and a rope, has been constructed near a statue of Ulysses S. Grant. Some of the marchers nearby carry Confederate flags. Up ahead, the dull thud of stun grenades can be heard, accompanied by bright flashes. “They need help!” a man shouts. “It’s us versus the cops!” Someone lets out a rebel yell. Scattered groups waver, debating whether to join the confrontation. “We lost the Senate—we need to make a stand now,” a bookish-looking woman in a down coat and glasses appeals to the person next to her.

MPD Officer Christina Laury, 32, is among the first city police officers to arrive on the scene. When she gets to the Capitol, officers are already being brutally attacked by rioters attempting to storm the building.

"They had bear mace, which is literally used for bears. I got hit with it plenty of times ... and it just seals your eyes shut. You just ... see officers going down trying to douse themselves with water, trying to open their eyes up so they can see again."

"The bravery and the heroism that I saw in these officers - the second they were able to open their eyes, they were back up front and they were just trying to stop these individuals from coming in."

Outside the Capitol building, Trump supporters clash with police outside the building, pulling down barricades, some calling the officers "traitors" for doing their jobs.

Burgess Everett, Co-Congressional Bureau Chief: “I kind of looked out the windows to see what was happening, and I was noticing that there were a lot of people. There’s a very strict fence that surrounds the perimeter of where you can go and where you can’t go. And I noticed that all of a sudden there were hundreds of people just milling around in places they shouldn’t be.”

1:09pm: Capitol Police Chief Sund calls House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving and Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger to get permission to deploy the National Guard. The pair tells him they will "run it up the chain" but he doesn’t hear back from them.

Capitol Police Chief Sund calls Irving twice more for a follow-up, and calls Stenger once more for a follow-up.

1:12pm:  Trump ends his rally speech.

Rather than disperse, the protesters cheer and shout, “push forward, push forward.”

One protester shouts, “That’s our house,” meaning the Capitol.

Hundreds of protesters begin pressing against a barrier separating the police from the crowd on the Capitol steps, as a half-dozen protesters exhort the crowd to press toward the building.

The crowd grows larger, many of them chanting, “1776, 1776.”

James Blassingame:  "...They're tugging on the officers. And they're in danger. And there's nothing we can do. And then I hear somebody say — somebody yelled, "They're coming in a window. So, go towards the North Side, the Senate side of the Capitol. And there was some door. Nobody could get inside a door. That Capitol was kind of an old place and some things are antiquated. So we rolled out towards the center of the Rotunda, looking north, and you just hear just noise and people running at me as far as I can see, from the crypt all the way to the North Side, Senate side of the Capitol, is running at us. And I looked to my left and right, and there's like maybe eight, nine of us. And I'm thinking (EXPLETIVE DELETED)...And they kind of leak out. And there's like — we're holding a line, but there's no line we're holding, because there's an insurmountable amount of people, and there's like eight, nine officers."

Amid the turmoil, an older man from Alabama collapses. Medical personnel rushed to his aid, starting chest compressions.

DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, a narcotics detective who works in plain clothes, hears the commotion at the Capitol and grabs his still brand-new police uniform that has been hanging in his locker and put it on for the first time. He races to the building with his partner and helps officers who are being pushed back by rioters. Then, Fanone, who has just been Tasered several times in the back of the neck, hears something chilling that makes him go into survival mode.

"Some guys started getting a hold of my gun and they were screaming out, 'Kill him with his own gun,'" says Fanone, who's been a police officer for almost two decades. He is laying on the ground at the US Capitol building, stunned and injured, and knows a group of rioters are stripping him of his gear. They grab spare ammunition, rip the police radio off his chest and even steal his badge. In those few moments, Fanone considers using deadly force. He thinks about using his gun but knows that he doesn’t have enough fire power and he'll soon be overpowered again, except this time they will probably use his gun against him and they'd have all the reason to end his life.

"So, the other option I thought of was to try to appeal to somebody's humanity. And I just remember yelling out that I have kids. And it seemed to work," says the 40-year-old father of four. A group within the rioters circle Fanone and protect him until help arrives, saving his life. "Thank you, but f*** you for being there," Fanone says of the rioters who protect him in that moment.

1:26pm: Capitol Police order the Capitol evacuated.

Ali Alexander and Alex Jones are at the Capitol grounds together, and Mr. Jones supports protesters with a bullhorn. He urges them to be peaceful and proceed to the area on the Capitol grounds where Mr. Alexander has secured a demonstration permit.

1:30pm: Rioters breach and storm the Capitol and some even scaled the walls.

Some people also walk up to the scaffolding set up for Biden's inauguration.

reheny willingly entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 and “bragged about gaining entry” in text messages sent at the time, but just over a week later he lied to law enforcement officers about his role, claiming “he did not willfully enter and was pushed inside by the surge of people.”

New Jersey organizer and militia member, James Breheny enters the Capitol building. He writes, “We breached the door Baby!” A subsequent message reads, “I have to clear chats.”  (Note: in the days following the Capitol riot, he deletes evidence from his phone as well as his entire Facebook account, which used the screen name “Seamus Evers.”

Soon the mob swarms past the officers, into the understructure of the bleachers, and scramble through its metal braces, up the building’s granite steps. Toward the top was a temporary security wall with three doors, one of which is instantly breached. Dozens of police stand behind the wall, using shields, nightsticks, and pepper spray to stop people from crossing the threshold. Other officers take up positions on planks above, firing a steady barrage of nonlethal munitions into the solid mass of bodies. As rounds hit metal, and caustic chemicals filled the space as if it is a fumigation tent, some of the insurrectionists panic: “We need to retreat and assault another point!” But most remain resolute. “Hold the line!” they exhort. “Storm!” Martial bagpipes blare through portable speakers.

“Shoot the politicians!” somebody yells.

“Fight for Trump!”

They break through the security and enter the Capitol building.

A police officer tries to stop them as they make their way to the Senate chamber but to no avail.

Amid a discussion of Arizona’s Electoral College votes, a Capitol Police official rushes to take the dais and issues a warning: “We had a breach.”

Sarah Ferris, Congress reporter: “I was sitting in the House press gallery, just steps from the chamber, when the texts began to come in. The Madison building, a tiny corner of the Capitol complex, was evacuated. Then the police were sprinting down the halls of Cannon, banging on doors to get staff out.”

Only a few dozen police officers are guarding the West front of the U.S. Capitol when they are rushed by thousands of pro-Trump demonstrators bent on breaking into the building.

Stephen Voss [outside]: “The police were getting it hard; they didn’t have a lot of equipment. I saw one policewoman who had no helmet, no shield, no baton. She’d been sprayed in the face with pepper spray and she looked like she was in agony but she was holding her ground. Rioters kept running toward the police. I watched this for about 40 minutes. When some of the rioters would get hit with pepper spray, they’d fall back and others would shout, “We need more people on the line.” It was an all-out battle for a while with a lot of pepper spray in the air. The police had very few gas masks.”

1:34pm: Mayor Bowser requests help from DoD by phone call with Secretary of the Army.

“The request was amorphous," a senior defense official later says, adding it was a nonspecific "We need help" request.

"No one really understood the situation. No specifics or clarity what the size of the crowd, where they were, did they actually breach the building," said Secretary of the Army who said he "ran down the hall to get authority to launch" the National Guard even as he "didn't have great understanding" of what was happening after a phone call with DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and DC Police Chief Robert Contee. "A lot of confusion because we weren't asked for help" in the leadup to the event, McCarthy said.

1:35pm:  Senators returned to the Senate chamber for debate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rises to strenuously condemn the move by some of his Republican brethren to block certification.

1:41pm:  “Broken arrow!” announces a citywide dispatch, using a term signaling that units are overrun. “Broken arrow!” the radio repeats seconds later.

1:45pm: Police officers are on the floor of the house with their guns drawn.

Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives are evacuated with both chambers suspending their deliberations.

Daniel Lippman, White House reporter [outside]: I heard that the Capitol was breached. I saw some protesters start jogging toward the Capitol saying they wanted to join the action.

“Stand down,” a man in a maga hat commands. “You’re outnumbered. There’s a fucking million of us out there, and we are listening to Trump—your boss.”

“We can take you out,” a man beside him warns.

The officers backpedals the length of the corridor, until arriving at a marble staircase. Then they move aside. “We love you guys—take it easy!” a rioter yells as he bounds up the steps, which leads to the Capitol’s central rotunda.

1:49pm: Capitol Police Chief Sund request help from DoD by phone.

Sund calls MG Walker informing him that rioters are about to breach the building and the Capitol Police will soon be requesting urgent backup.

“I need to get permission from the secretary of the Army and I would send him all available guardsmen but as soon as I got permission to do so,” Walker says, and sends a message to the leadership of the Army, letting them know of the request from Chief Sund.

Armed with metal pipes, pepper spray and other weapons, the mob pushes past the thin police line, and one protester hurls a fire extinguisher at an officer.

US Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick is hit / bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher during a physical altercation with members of the mob of Trump supporters who stormed the building. “He returned to the division office and collapsed,” the department said. “He was taken to a local hospital...”. It was not clear if he was the officer shown in the video.

Trump supporters — some of whom have walked from the rally — push past police and break down barriers. Some ran up the Capitol steps, others scale the walls of the exterior.

One man walks through the crowd yelling “guys with medical conditions, stay away from the front.”

While most in the crowd are relatively peaceful, groups donned in camouflage and helmets also march through the crowd yelling profanities at news reporters.

Olivia Beavers, Congress reporter: “Suddenly ... there were all these threats—a potential bomb at the Library of Congress, a suspicious package.”

Trump retweets a video of the rally, which includes his previous statements that: “our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you came up with, we will stop the steal. . . You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”

1:50pm: Robert Glover, the commander on scene for MPD, declares a riot, nearly two hours after Trump's speech at the White House where he instructs his followers to go to the Capitol.

He quickly told officers to retake the inauguration bleachers, to stop the crowd from raining down heavy objects on officers from above.

Mr Glover believes some rioters may be caught up in the moment, but others seem to be moving in "military formation" as if they had prepared for the assault. Some appear to be using hand signals to co-ordinate tactics.

1:53pm:   The DC Metropolitan Police Department declares “a breach at the Capitol as well as a riot at the Capitol.”

1:58pm:  Rioters make it past two barriers on the east side of the Capitol and can now approach the doors of the building.

Some people pose for pictures inside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office. Others sit on the seat of the speaker as the number of protesters outside to Capitol continue to swell.

Thomas Robertson and Jacob Fracker, two members of the Rocky Mount Police Department in Virginia, take a selfie in front of a statue of John Stark, a general in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. They are off-duty from their positions as police officers with the Rocky Mountain Police Department in Rocky Mount, Virginia.

In social media posts, Robertson says, “CNN and the Left are just mad because we actually attacked the government who is the problem and not some random small business ... The right IN ONE DAY took the f***** U.S. Capitol. Keep poking us.” He also states that he is “proud” of the photo in an Instagram Post that is shared to Facebook, because he was “willing to put skin in the game”. A Facebook post by Fracker contains the caption, “Lol to anyone who’s possibly concerned about the picture of me going around... Sorry I hate freedom? ...Not like I did anything illegal...y’all do what you feel you need to...”

Robertson and Fracker send the photo to their police department colleagues, and after it is leaked to social media he reposts it on his own Facebook page. Robertson states that he broke no laws, does not know about the violence, and that he has been escorted “in” by the Capitol Police.

2:03pm: Police strain hard to hold their line outside the Capitol, or when some new reinforcements march in on the periphery. “Trick or treat, trick or treat! What is this, fucking Halloween?” shouts one man, mocking their riot gear, before pivoting to mocking some of them for being out of shape: “1-800-Jenny Craig! Call Jenny Craig. She can help you assholes.”

A Capitol Police Lieutenant repeatedly asks over the radio, "Does anybody have a plan?”

2:04pm: Capitol Police are spraying pepper spray toward the crowd and the crowd fights back. One rioter also sprays the police with pepper spray.

While the senators are in a temporary holding room after the Senate chamber is evacuated, Trump tries to call Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), but mistakenly reaches Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who hands the phone to Tuberville. Trump then tries to convince Tuberville to make additional objections to the Electoral College vote in an effort to block Congress’ certification of Biden’s win. The call is cut off because senators are asked to move to a secure location.

2:10pm: Capitol Police Chief Sund gets approval from Irving to call the Guard - but is blocked again at the next step.

A protestor livestreams on Parler: “The cops were shooting us for a while, then they stopped,” the man says, referring to an earlier series of flash-bang grenades. “We’re up on the Capitol. I think they’re going to breach the doors. It’s getting serious. Someone’s going to die today. It’s not good at all.”

Rioters crash through windows and climb into the Capitol and clash with police, including lone Capitol police officer, Eugene Goodman, who tries to prevent them from ascending toward the Senate chamber. Goodman tries to hold back a few dozen rioters who push him back and up the steps leading almost directly to the chamber. For almost a minute, Goodman holds them back — at the exact moment that, inside the Senate, police are frantically racing around the chamber trying to lock down more than a dozen doors leading to the chamber floor and the galleries above. “Second floor!” Goodman yells into his radio, alerting other officers and command that the mob has reached the precipice of the Senate. Had the rioters turned right, they would have been a few feet away from the main entrance into the chamber. On the other side of that door, making their way into the Senate, where at least a half-dozen armed officers, including one with a semiautomatic weapon in the middle of the floor, scans each entrance for intruders. Instead, the group follow Goodman in the other direction and meets a group of police in a back corridor outside the Senate.

Pence and his family had just ducked into a hideaway less than 100 feet from that landing.

2:13pm:  Proud Boys member Dominic Pezzola, breaks the window of the U.S. Capitol Building with a clear plastic shield.

Several Proud Boys leaders have walkie-talkie style communication devices on their chests.

A senior McConnell adviser reaches a former law firm colleague who had just left the Justice Department: Will Levi, who had served as Attorney General William P. Barr’s chief of staff. “We need help — now,” he tells Levi. From his home, Levi immediately calls FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich, who is in the command center in the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

Capitol police had lost control of the building, Levi tells Bowdich.

Security takes House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) to an undisclosed location where he shelters with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). The trio call Maryland Governor Larry Hogan from the bunker, asking him to send backup to quell the devolving scene on Capitol Hill.

His assistance is being requested as the governor of Maryland, for the State’s National Guard and State Police. The governor obliges and sends 200 state troopers to Washington. Hogan also activates 500 citizen-soldiers in the guard, but he runs into a problem. The National Guard may only cross state lines if it has clearance from authorities at its destination. A state's governor can grant this permission, but the District of Columbia is not a state. That means the guard may only enter the city limits if it has permission from the federal government, specifically the Secretary of Defense. Maryland's National Guard repeatedly asks for access to the capital, but the DoD denies each request. While it waits for approval, the guard organizes so it could move at a moment's notice whenever it gets authorization.

A protestor clad in all black breaches police lines on the West Front of the Capitol, popping up behind the police to cheers in the crowd. For about two minutes, the man exhorts protesters before the police chase him back into the crowd.

A protestor, accompanying the mob toward the Senate Chamber yells: “Where are the fucking traitors? Drag them out by their fucking hair.”) The invaders’ disorientation is plain as they follow Goodman up the stairs, haplessly dependent on his guidance even as they threaten him. “Where’s the meeting at?” one calls out. “Where do they count the fucking votes?”

Capitol police alert congressional staff that “no entry or exit is permitted” at all Capitol buildings “due to an external security threat.”

The House resumes its debate.

2:17pm:  The House goes back into recess after staff enter the chamber and make motions for the members to get down. Lawmakers are told they may need to take shelter under their chairs.

Nancy Pelosi is presiding.  Her security team yank her from the rostrum. “I thought they were just switching off because of mischief,” she later recalled. “I didn’t know it was because of real danger.”

2:18pm: Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), supporter of the QAnon movement, live-tweets House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) location: “The Speaker has been removed from the chambers.”

Another text alert goes out to Capitol staff: “Due to security threat inside: immediately, move inside your office, take emergency equipment, lock the doors, take shelter.”

2:19pm: The House and Senate begins general evacuation.

Senator James Lankford (R-OK) speaks: "The Senate will stand in recess until the call of the chair."

An announcement: "Protesters are in the building."

Vice President Pence is whisked away from Senate chambers for his safety.

“WE DID IT! THANK Q PATRIOTS!” one QAnon account wrote on Twitter.

2:20pm:   Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) says American “democracy is in crisis” with polls showing that large numbers of voters “believe the election that just occurred was rigged.” Cruz, a Republican, objects to the certification of election results in Arizona, saying the Senate has a responsibility to acknowledge the profound threat posed by widespread disbelief in the legitimacy of the election. He calls for the creation of a commission to conduct a 10-day “emergency audit” to investigate any irregularities, citing a similar commission created after the 1876 presidential election. Cruz urges lawmakers not to “take the easy path, but instead act together″ and create a “credible and fair tribunal. Consider the claims, consider the facts, consider the evidence and make a conclusive determination whether and to what extent this election complied with the Constitution.’'

2:24pm: Dozens of messages on Right Wing Social Media Site “Gab” calls for those inside the Capitol building to hunt down the vice president. In videos uploaded to the channel, protesters can be heard chanting “Where is Pence?”

Trump tweets: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”

Within minutes of the mob breaching the Capitol complex, rioters pounding the doors of the House gallery, where a group of lawmakers are trapped.

“I thought we’d have to fight our way out,” says Representative Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado and a former Army Ranger who served in Iraq.

Crow moves other members away from the barricaded door inside the gallery, helps them don gas masks, tells them to take off the lapel pins assigned to all House members and takes out his only possible weapon — a pen.

After 15 minutes, Capitol Police and SWAT team members on a rescue mission hustle the members out by clearing a path outside the gallery, above the House floor.

With police in the lead, guns drawn, the lawmakers enter a scene of chaos and mayhem. Some police rush to barricade doors to block rioters. Others pin protesters to the ground to allow the lawmakers to pass.

“We heard yelling through the halls,” said Crow, who brings up the rear to ensure all the members make it to safety. As police lead the members down stairwells and into the subterranean maze of tunnels to a secure location.

A Capitol Police Officer later said, “[We] did what we could against impossible odds and a volatile crowd which many times threatened us with phrases like ‘We’re gonna kill you!,’ ‘We’re gonna murder you and then them!,’ ‘You guys are traitors and should be killed!’ … I felt at this time a tangible fear that maybe I or some of my colleagues might not make it home alive.”

Stephen Voss: “Some in the crowd on the west side of the Capitol were throwing water bottles. A policeman holding a pepper-spray gun while blood ran down his cheek. Rioters on the north side of the Capitol climbing a wall toward an elevated walkway that would give them access to a door to the Capitol.”

Sund tells Piatt: "I am making an urgent, urgent immediate request for National Guard assistance. I have got to get boots on the ground."

Piatt responds: "I don't like the visual of the National Guard standing a police line with the Capitol in the background. Piatt later denies those remarks, and then backtracks when note-takers in the room tell him he may have said that. Piatt, who wasn’t in the chain of command, was leading the call while waiting for the Army secretary to receive approval for the full activation of the D.C. Guard from the defense secretary.

Trump initially resists approval of National Guard intervention as his supporters breach the Capitol building.

Rioters breach a second entry into the building, this time on the east side.

The House goes back into session, with rioters in the building.

2:30pm: Chaos ensues inside the Capitol.

Marianne LeVine, Senate reporter: “Then there was an announcement the building wasn’t secure. Intercom, probably Capitol Police. We decided to barricade the doors with couches and chairs. We turned off the lights and we hid behind the desks. We started hearing noise. We could hear they’d gone into the Capitol. We heard a lot of stampeding and cheers and people. We could hear chants of, “Four more years!”

Burgess Everett: “We could hear people shaking the walls. At this point, people are on the Senate floor and all over the Capitol that shouldn’t be. We don’t even know this because we turned everything off because we’re trying to make it seem like nobody is in this room. We don’t know who the heck is in there. … I just heard banging and yelling, and police screaming and radio. I mean, it just sounded like bedlam.”

The white nationalist known as Baked Alaska livestreams from inside Speaker Pelosi's office. One man, Richard Bigo Barnett, enters her office, put his feet on his desk, and steals a letter addressed to her.  Offices were ransacked, glass was broken, litter was left throughout the building, and wooden furniture was destroyed. Some rioters smear feces on the walls.

US President-elect Biden asks Trump to step up and ask the protesters to stop.

President-Elect Joseph Biden: "And this God awful display today is bringing home to every Republican and Democrat and Independent in the nation that we must step up. This is the United States of America. There's never, ever, ever, ever, ever been a thing we've tried to do that we've done it together and not been able to do it. So President Trump, step up. May God bless America. May God protect our troops and all those folks at the Capitol who are trying to preserve order.”

Stephen Voss: “On the north side of the Capitol is a security door. It was very chaotic there. About a dozen rioters had forced themselves through the door but then were pepper sprayed and pushed out; they fell on top of each other in a pile. The Capitol Police tried to close the door, but a rioter had jammed a flagpole into the top of the door to keep it open. The police kept trying to close the door and eventually bent the flagpole. This went on for about 45 minutes. At one point the rioters used a metal barricade to try to ram the door. The door glass eventually broke but the police managed to keep the rioters out.”

Melanie Zanona: “And the Capitol Police officer said there’s protesters [in Statuary Hall], tear gas has been dispersed. And he started advising everyone where the escape hoods were located up in the gallery. The gallery staff started then passing out—there were these big black duffel bags, and they started taking out these escape hoods. They were contained in this foil, wrapped up in this foil. It was like a double package.”

Sarah Ferris: “Police eventually started to quickly evacuate large groups of members from the floor. They started on the Republican side, and I watched them run to the exit. Then it was our turn in the gallery, with staff shouting for press to start making their way toward a door across the chamber—a maneuver that would require climbing over seats and railings in the most high stress of times.”

2:40pm: Before evacuating, the Senate parliamentarian grabs the boxes holding sealed certificates of each state's electoral votes — which were cast December 14 — are transported to the Congressional chamber in ceremonial, 18-inch by 10-inch mahogany boxes lined with leather. As they evacuate, Congressional aides grab the boxes, rescuing them from possible harm or vandalism. "If our capable floor staff hadn't grabbed them, they would have been burned by the mob," Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon later tweets.  Some of those aides are part of Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough's staff.

The votes in these boxes are a crucial piece in the final step, under federal law, to certify the 2020 presidential election and reaffirm the winner.  Both Democrat and Republican members of the House of Representatives and Senate need to read aloud the certificates inside the boxes that record each state's electoral votes. Congress then needs to count those votes before Vice President Mike Pence can confirm President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the election.  Those ceremonial wooden boxes do not contain the only copy of each state's electoral vote count, so if they are left behind, the certification process can still proceed, but not as quickly.  The Federal Registrar also posts digital copies of each certificate on the Electoral College webpage.

The America Firsters and other invaders fan out in search of lawmakers, breaking into offices and revelling in their own astounding impunity. “Nancy, I’m ho-ome! ” a man taunts, mimicking Jack Nicholson’s character in “The Shining.” Someone else yells, “1776—it’s now or never.”

Trump tweets, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country. . . . USA demands the truth!”

The President appears at times to enjoy watching the chaos he had unleashed unfold. Hesitant, he turns down the request for an immediate televised address.

2:42pm:  Rioters reach the doors of the Speaker’s Lobby.

Former White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah, tweets: “Condemn this now, @realDonaldTrump - you are the only one they will listen to. For our country!”

A young policeman follows closely behind a protestor named “Black.” Pudgy and bespectacled, with a medical mask over red facial hair, he approaches Black, and asks, with concern, “You good, sir? You need medical attention?”

“I’m good, thank you,” Black responds. Then, returning to his phone call, he says, “I got shot in the face with some kind of plastic bullet.”

“Any chance I could get you guys to leave the Senate wing?” the officer inquires. It was the tone of someone trying to lure a suicidal person into climbing down from a ledge.

“We will,” Black assures him. “I been making sure they ain’t disrespectin’ the place.”

“O.K., I just want to let you guys know—this is, like, the sacredest place.”

Another protestor named “Chansley” had climbed onto the dais. “I’m gonna take a seat in this chair, because Mike Pence is a fucking traitor,” he announces. He hands his cell phone to another Trump supporter, telling him, “I’m not one to usually take pictures of myself, but in this case I think I’ll make an exception.” The policeman looks on with a pained expression as Chansley flexes his biceps.

Most lawmakers have been evacuated from the Capitol for their own safety, but most of their staff members are left to fend for themselves as armed mobs of violent rioters start to roam through hallways and in and out of offices. 

3:00pm to 8:00pm:  Bringing the Capitol Under Control

After first evacuating congressional leaders to the secure area of the Hart Building, Capitol Police decide to err on the side of caution and transported leaders, including Pelosi, McConnell, Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, to Fort McNair, an Army post in Southwest Washington.

3:00pm: Acting Defense Secretary Miller determines that all available forces of the D.C. National Guard are required to reestablish security of the Capitol complex.

Statement by Acting Secretary of Defense Miller:

"Chairman Milley and I just spoke separately with the Vice President and with Speaker Pelosi, Leader McConnell, Senator Schumer and Representative Hoyer about the situation at the U.S. Capitol. We have fully activated the D.C. National Guard to assist federal and local law enforcement as they work to peacefully address the situation. We are prepared to provide additional support as necessary and appropriate as requested by local authorities. Our people are sworn to defend the constitution and our democratic form of government and they will act accordingly."

Ryan McCarthy transmits the decision to call up National Guard units from D.C. and neighboring states. 

Guardsmen are moved from traffic points and Metro stations to the D.C. Armory and refitted for a crowd control mission. Army Secretary McCarthy directs the National Guard to prepare soldiers to move from the Armory to the Capitol complex.

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is holding a routine press conference in Richmond when his top homeland security aide, Brian Moran, receives texts about the storming of the Capitol, some 100 miles to the north. Moran is pulled out of the press conference by Northam’s chief of staff and informed that Mayor Bowser’s office had called seeking assistance. Within an hour, more than 200 Virginia state troopers are on their way to Washington.

“Absolutely, send them,” Moran says. (These troopers later clear the inauguration stands on the Capitol’s west side, where rioters had battled police earlier).

3:11pm: Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), and USMC veteran tweets: “We are witnessing absolute banana republic crap in the United States Capitol right now. @realdonaldtrump, you need to call this off.”

3:12pm: A Senate ally, Republican Marco Rubio of Florida, appeals directly to the president in a tweet: “Mr. President @realDonaldTrump the men & women of law enforcement are under assault. It is crucial you help restore order by sending resources to assist the police and ask those doing this to stand down.”

3:14pm: Inside the Capitol, in a stately, high-ceilinged office suite, marauders mill around, grabbing things off the desks, knocking things over. “Don’t break stuff!” a young woman hollers at them. “Stop! That’s not why we’re here.”

Shots are heard inside, an intruder invades Pelosi’s office, and Trump supporters make it into the House and Senate chambers.

The mob roams the Capitol. The intruders run around the back hallways of the second floor, weaving in and out of the Senate majority leader and House speaker’s adjoining suites.

A man is live-streamed on Twitter from the Senate Chamber rifling through confidential Senate documents and says, “I think @tedcruz would want us to do this.”

Melanie Zanona: And so police officers put a big wooden credenza in front of the door and created a barricade and they drew their guns. And we heard just like bang, bang, bang on the doors. We didn’t know what it was at that point.

Sarah Ferris: “We heard bangs on the main chamber floor outside, then what sounded like gunshots. A hundred feet in front of us, a half-dozen police officers armed only with handguns stood in front of what looked like a large piece of furniture that had been pushed in front of the main chamber door. I cannot overstate how terrified we all were, not knowing what was coming next. Glass broke, more banging. Then, there was knocking on the enormous, solid wood door up in our gallery. Police yelled to confirm their identity, then opened it and finally started allowing us to evacuate.”

The rampage continues for close to an hour and Trump issues a plea on Twitter asking the protesters to "remain peaceful".

The disorder escalates.

As the riot continues, QAnon and far-right conservatives use social media to urge followers to “hold the line” and “trust the plan.”

With the outside world now aware that Congress has shut down and watching in shock, authorities debate how to regain control of the building and whether the National Guard should be deployed. Inside, legislators are taken through passages; others shelter where they can. Many people will remain trapped in the Capitol, while the building is swept for explosives and other threats.

Secretary of the Army directs DCNG to prepare to move from their armory to the Capitol complex while seeking verbal approval from the Assistant Secretary of the Army.

3:15pm:  Ivanka Trump tweets:

"American Patriots -- any security breach or disrespect to our law enforcement is unacceptable.  The violence must stop immediately.  Please be peaceful."  

After being called out for dubbing them "patriots," Trump deletes her tweet.

Melania Trump is elsewhere in the White House, overseeing a photo shoot of decorative objects for a coffee table book she’s working on. Photos were being taken of rugs and other items in the Executive Residence and the East Wing.  Mrs. Trump, who has expressed interest in writing a coffee table book about decorative objects she has amassed and had restored in the White House -- was overseeing the photo project.  As the mayhem escalates, aides ask her if she would release a statement urging calm. But, no, the first lady is firmly focused on her photo project.

House Speaker Pelosi calls the Governor of Virginia. The Governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, confirms to House Speaker Pelosi that all assets of the State of Virginia including the National Guard are being sent to aid the U.S. Capitol. 

First assets from Virginia begin rolling into DC.

3:16pm:  Rioters now breach a third door at the building’s southeast side.

3:19pm: Secretary of the Army call with Speaker Pelosi and Senator Schumer about the nature of Mayor Bowser's request. SECARMY explains DCNG is fully mobilized.

3:25pm: More than an hour after rioters storm the Capitol, police are able to clear the Senate floor. Rioters are squeezed away from the Senate wing of the building and moved toward the Rotunda.

Times photographer Erin Schaff:   “Grabbing my press pass, they saw that my ID said ‘The New York Times’ and became really angry...They threw me to the floor, trying to take my cameras. I started screaming for help as loudly as I could. No one came. People just watched. At this point, I thought I could be killed and no one would stop them. They ripped one of my cameras away from me, broke a lens on the other and ran away.”

Schaff hides her camera out of fear of being identified as a reporter again and is eventually held at gunpoint by policemen who don't believe she is a member of the press because she lacks identification. Luckily, two fellow photographers identify her to the police, who allow her to move to safety.

President Donald Trump is encouraging supporters occupying the U.S. Capitol to “remain peaceful,” but he is not calling for them to disperse. As he faces growing pressure from allies to condemn the violence Wednesday afternoon, Trump tweets, “No violence!” adding: “Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue.” But Trump does not ask supporters to vacate the area as the unrest continues. 

3:26pm: Call between Bowser, the D.C. police chief and the Secretary of the Army in telling the local officials their request for troops was not rejected, and that the deployment has been authorized.

3:29pm: Virginia Governor Ralph Northam offered to deploy Virginia National Guard to DC.

3:33pm: National Guard is activated.

After the mob has been in the Capitol building for at least an hour, the National Guard is called.

A Capitol Police officer tries to reason with the crowd: “You guys just need to go outside,” he pleads with a man in a green backpack. When asked why they weren’t expelling the protesters, the officer said, “We’ve just got to let them do their thing now.”

Stephen Voss: “On the east side of the Capitol, there was a pitched battle with more rioters trying to get in. One door was already smashed and some of the rioters were hanging out inside the entrance. Others were using flagpoles to hit the doors...”

3:34pm: Trump Tweets: “I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful,” Mr. Trump wrote. “No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order — respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”

3:35pm: Pence Tweets: “The violence and destruction taking place at the US Capitol Must Stop and it Must Stop Now. Anyone involved must respect Law Enforcement officers and immediately leave the building.”

3:40pm: White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany announces that the National Guard is on the way.

Video footage captured by Marcus DiPaola, a freelance journalist working at TikTok appears to show police allowing crowds to breach barricades during riots at the U.S. Capitol—the video goes immediately viral. However, DiPaola says officers only backed away after being threatened while being vastly outnumbered.

3:42pm: Livestream video shows a policeman taking a selfie with a protestor.

3:40pm / 3:45pm (Disputed): Maryland Governor Larry Hogan receives a call from an unknown number. He picked up and found the secretary of the Army on the other end, informing him the secretary of defense has granted Maryland permission to send its National Guard into Washington DC. MDNG expected to arrive on 7 January.

House Minority Kevin McCarthy, one of the president’s closest allies, who had been trying to reach Trump at the White House, finally succeeded and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the rioters. Trump falsely claims that the attackers are members of antifa. McCarthy tells the president that in fact they are his own supporters.

Kellyanne Conway, a former aide who remains close to the president, calls the White House after the D.C. mayor’s office asks her help getting Trump to call up the National Guard.  She leaves a message with his office, asking that her name be added to the chorus of people calling on the president to do something. “This is really bad,” Conway says. “People are going to get hurt. Only he can stop them. He can’t just tweet. He’s got to get down there.”

Alyssa Farah, watching on television from Florida,  reaches out several times to Meadows, her former boss. “You guys have to say something,” she tells him. “Even if the president’s not willing to put out a statement, you should go to the [cameras] and say, ‘We condemn this. Please stand down.’ If you don’t, people are going to die.”

Inside the White House, there is paralysis.

Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, watches the riot on television from his second-floor West Wing office. At one point, Chris Liddell, a deputy chief of staff, joins him. They were horrified, but they didn’t believe there was anything they could do to stop it. These were two of the most powerful people in the government, yet what could they do if the president refused to act?

Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner is flying back from the Middle East. Several aides, including Ivanka Trump, urge the president to say more. Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany considered whether to hold a briefing but doesn't.

Stephen Voss: “There’s an area that TV crews use to film stand-ups with the Capitol in the background; earlier in the day I’d seen reporters there. But now the crowds were attacking the equipment cases, trying to destroy it. One guy was live-streaming as the equipment was being smashed and he said several times, “This is the end of legacy media.”

3:44pm: Multiple officers are injured in the violent mob, with at least one transported to a hospital.

Peter Francis Stager, the man who had beaten a DC Metro police officer with the American flag at one of the entrances to the Capitol, tells a reporter that "death is the only remedy" for the Capitol law enforcement officers.

3:46pm:  Chief of the National Guard Bureau Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson has a phone call with Virginia Adjutant General Timothy P. Williams to discuss support to Washington, D.C. and is informed that Virginia National Guard forces have already been mobilized.

3:48pm:  Army Secretary McCarthy leaves the Pentagon for Metro Police Department Headquarters in the Henry Daly Building.

3:50pm: Congressional Democratic leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put out a statement pleading with Trump to do more. “We are calling on President Trump to demand that all protestors leave the U.S. Capitol and Capitol Grounds immediately.”

DHS Federal Protective Service cars race down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol.

3:52pm:  Senator Mitt Romney approaches Josh Hawley and Ron Johnson, two of the dozen Republican senators objecting to the certification.

3:55pm: The Maryland National Guard inform National Guard officials in Washington that Governor Hogan has activated a response force of 100 troops that can arrive in D.C. in eight hours. Another 150 to 200 troops would be available to follow later.

4:00pm: Biden Speaks. Trump still has not appeared on camera since the siege began, but the president-elect steps in to try to calm the nation.

Speaking in Delaware, Biden calls on Trump to appear on television to “demand an end to this siege.”

“At this hour, our democracy is under unprecedented assault, unlike anything we've seen in modern times, an assault in a citadel of liberty: the Capitol itself... This is not dissent, it's disorder. It's chaos. It borders on sedition, and it must end now. I call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward."

President-elect Biden calls the men and women who invaded the Capitol a “mob” of “extremists.” He also demands President Trump come on TV and denounce the protesters, which Trump does not do.

4:05pm:  Vice President Mike Pence is calling on protesters to leave the Capitol immediately: “This attack on our Capitol will not be tolerated and those involved will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” 

4:07pm: former Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney: “The best thing @realDonaldTrump could do right now is to address the nation from the Oval Office and condemn the riots. A peaceful transition of power is essential to the country and needs to take place on 1/20.”

4:15pm: The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Capitol Police investigate a suspicious item close to the Republican National Committee headquarters building on First Street.

Three men are livestreamed on Parler furtively removing their black tactical gear under the cover of a tree outside the Capitol as the action is subsiding and pulling on red MAGA sweatshirts to pass as mere Trump supporters.

4:17pm: Trump Speaks

 After almost three hours of the siege, Trump tweets a video from the Rose Garden in which he tells his supporters at the Capitol that he loves them, and continues to denounce the election results.

“It was a landslide election. And everyone knows it. Especially the other side. But you have to go home. … There’s never been a time like this when such a thing happened when they could take it away from all of us. From me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can't play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you, you're very special. You've seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel, but go home and go home in peace.”

Trump Supporters respond on TheDonald forum:  “He calls people to descend on DC for what, 9 hours, then instructs them to go home? ...People have lost time, money, family, potentially careers and even their lives over this… and a ‘Thanks for coming, go home now’ is what people are instructed to do?” 

4:30pm: A column of F.B.I. and Department of Homeland Security agents in riot gear enter the Dirksen Senate Office Building and officers from Washington’s police force headed to the Capitol in a show of force to end violent protests, looting and vandalism. A Metropolitan Police commander instructs his officers to stay calm because “it could get crazy in there.”

4:37pm:   Three business groups are calling for the attack on the nation’s Capitol to end and for a peaceful transition of power, with one telling President Donald Trump’s Cabinet to consider ousting him. National Association of Manufacturers CEO Jay Timmons says that Vice President Mike Pence should consider working with the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment “to preserve democracy.” The 25th Amendment says the vice president and a majority of principal officers of executive departments “or of such other body as Congress” may provide a declaration to Congress that the president “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” At that point, the vice president would assume the powers of acting president. Timmons says, “The outgoing president incited violence in an attempt to retain power, and any elected leader defending him is violating their oath to the Constitution and rejecting democracy in favor of anarchy.”  Business Roundtable, which represents some of the most powerful companies in America including Walmart, Apple, Starbucks and General Electric, call on Trump and other officials to bring the protests to an end. Also, The CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donohue, which represents large and small companies, urges officials to clear the Capitol and for Congress to approve the results of the presidential election. 

4:55pm: Senators are moved to a hearing room on the Capitol campus.

The mob make it so deep into the building they manage to infiltrate the Capitol Visitor Center, an underground bunker built into the aftermath of 9/11. It cost roughly $700 million and has multiple secure rooms and blast-resistant doors. Police intend to take evacuating senators there as a safe room but the mob is already inside.

5:00pm: Backup finally arrives close in the form of D.C. police officers. That larger contingent begins clearing the Capitol complex. The group first work on securing smaller areas like Statuary Hall, where sculptures of historical figures are displayed. Then, led by inspector Robert Glover, who works in the department’s Homeland Security Bureau, the force goes through each floor and room to find and expel remaining rioters. “If it wasn’t for Inspector Glover, we would have probably lost both chambers to looting and had a complete overtaking of the building,” a Capitol Police officer says.

A Capitol Police Officer later says, “I wandered around the building for a little bit, looking at the wreckage and trying to take everything in before people cleaned up. Doors and windows were broken, and had been barricaded with furniture and display cases. There was broken glass, trash, banners and signs. I went down to the [Lower West Terrace] through the tunnel and it was just trashed. Knives, baseball bats, flag poles, banners, CDU shields, body armor, pants, socks, shoes, hats, uniform items, jackets, wallets, cash, phones, flags and signs littered the ground. Everything was covered in white from the tear gas and I could still smell the pepper spray.”

5:04pm: D.C. National Guard troops leave the D.C. armory.

“How does this happen? How does this happen?” demands Senator Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). Sergeant at Arms of the United States Senate Michael Stenger cannot muster an answer, practically inaudible as he dispiritedly debriefs the senators. “He is talking in circles,” Graham thinks to himself.

Senator Joe Manchin III (D-WV), calls Stenger’s attempt to field that question “absolutely pathetic” and further reduces confidence in the room. As Graham pressed for a better explanation, Stenger’s voice gets weaker and smaller. “Here’s your mission: Take back the Senate,” Graham tells Stenger. “Whatever you need to do, do it. We’re not leaving this place. We’re not going to be run out by a mob.”

Finally, the Stenger sits down amid the others in the room, saying to no one in particular: “I wish I had just retired last week.”

Senate Majority Leader McConnell is determined to get back to the floor. “We are going back tonight” to finish the vote to formalize the election, he says. “The thugs won’t win.”

5:05pm:  Pro-Trump demonstrators have massed outside statehouses across the country, forcing evacuations in at least two states. In St. Paul, Minnesota, cheers rang out from demonstrators in reaction to the news that supporters of President Donald Trump had stormed the U.S. Capitol. Hundreds of mostly unmasked people people gather outside capitols on Wednesday with Trump flags and “Stop the Steal” signs. In Georgia and Oklahoma, some demonstrators carry guns. New Mexico state police evacuate staff from a statehouse building that includes the governor’s and secretary of state’s offices as a precaution shortly after hundreds of flag-waving supporters arrive in a vehicle caravan and on horseback. The staff of Utah Governor Spencer Cox is sent home as several hundred pro-Trump demonstrators rally outside the Capitol, though the demonstration remains relatively calm. A brief scuffle between pro-Trump demonstrators, who include members of the Proud Boys, and counterprotesters breaks out in Columbus, Ohio, but there is no immediate threat to the Capitol.

5:15pm:  Senator. Joe Manchin from West Virginia and Tammy Duckworth from Illinois both express their supported of Congress's efforts to restart the process late Wednesday night.

"Whatever it takes ... these thugs aren't running us off," Manchin tweets.

Manchin says the mood is “ok” in the undisclosed location where all the senators are being held... “a lot of prayers”

5:30pm: The Capitol remains occupied by protesters.

DC’s Mayor calls a 6pm curfew, and 1,100 National Guard troops are brought in to help police. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam institutes a curfew in the state's DC suburbs for the same time period.

National Guard units begin to arrive on the Capitol grounds  — which the Pentagon considers lightning speed. About 750 Guard troops from Maryland begin arriving, along with 620 from Virginia.

On the TheDonald Forum: “Wow, what an absolute punch in the gut. He says it’s going to be wild, and when it gets wild, he calls it a heinous attack and middle fingers his supporters that he told to be there. Unbelievable. People have lost time, money, family, potentially careers and even their lives over this… and a ‘Thanks for coming, go home now’ is what people are instructed to do?”

Mayhem ensues when no further guidance arrives. Some supporters are cursing Trump for leaving them high and dry in the aftermath.

“Fuck Donald Trump,” one person wrote on TheDonald. “This fucking piece of shit dragged us into DC for what? To leave us holding the bag?”

Police use tear gas to clear rioters from the terrace on the west side of the Capitol

As the temperature drops, the crowd outside the Capitol begins to dissipate.

By dusk, only a few hundred remain.

The House chambers are cleared for the members to return to the joint session.

As the day ends, it is announced that four people died in the siege. The final number will be 5.

Trump who promised to march with the protesters does not show up.

Cleveland Meredith receives texts describing the incident that have occurred at the Capitol. Meredith responds to these texts, stating, “Ready to remove several craniums from shoulders.” Shortly afterwards, the defendant sent a text that stated, “I’m so ready to FK SOME TRAITORS UP.”

Cleveland Meredith sends another text that states, “I’m gonna collect a shit ton of Traitors heads.” Later he sends a text that states, “Hauling ass, 3.5 hours from target practice,” and, “It ain’t just me, someone has to take the TRASH out, FK THESE MTHRFKRS.”

Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) is directly blaming President Donald Trump for the storming of the Capitol, saying the Capitol “was ransacked while the leader of the free world cowered behind his keyboard - tweeting against his Vice President for fulfilling the duties of his oath to the Constitution...Lies have consequences. This violence was the inevitable and ugly outcome of the President’s addiction to constantly stoking division.” 

5:34pm:  The sergeant-at-arms, who is responsible for the security of Congress, tells lawmakers and reporters that the Capitol is now secure. Meanwhile, members of Congress continue to shelter in largely undisclosed locations.

5:40pm: D.C. National Guard troops arrive at the Capitol, four hours after they were first requested by the mayor. They are sworn in.

The National Guard take a much more aggressive approach than Capitol police had earlier that afternoon, physically handling the rioters and pushing them back with force. A perimeter is secured around the Capitol.

Police are using tear gas and percussion grenades to begin clearing pro-Trump protesters from the grounds of the U.S. Capitol ahead of a curfew in Washington. Police donned gas masks as they moved in Wednesday evening with force to clear protesters from the Capitol grounds shortly before a curfew took hold. In the moments before, there were violent clashes between the police and protesters, who tore railing for the inauguration scaffolding and threw it at the officers. 

5:45pm: The acting secretary of defense formally authorizes Virginia and Maryland National Guard troops to support the Capitol Police. The governors of both states had offered their assistance hours earlier.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam issue a curfew for two inner suburbs of northern Virginia as authorities sought to gain control after rioting at the U.S. Capitol. The curfew applies from 6 p.m. Wednesday to 6 a.m. Thursday in Arlington County and the city of Alexandria.

Northam says he issued the order at the request of local officials. Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson confirms that the city requested the curfew. He tweets, “Let’s keep our community safe in the face of the terror we have seen across the River today.” Virginia sends local and state police to the District to provide aid. Violating the curfew is a Class 1 misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. The curfew is imposed barely an hour before it is to take effect.

5:50pm: Officials declare the US Capitol complex secure.

After the violent mob of Trump supporters occupy the building for four hours, they are expelled.

Police seize five guns.

Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, is unsparing in his criticism of President Trump as the instigator of the day’s events:

“Today, the United States Capitol — the world’s greatest symbol of self-government — was ransacked while the leader of the free world cowered behind his keyboard — tweeting against his vice president for fulfilling the duties of his oath to the Constitution,” he says in a statement.

“Lies have consequences,” he continues. “This violence was the inevitable and ugly outcome of the president’s addiction to constantly stoking division.” He adds: “Americans are better than this: Americans aren’t nihilists. Americans aren’t arsonists. Americans aren’t French revolutionaries taking to the barricades.”

6:00pm: Trump also posts a video in which he repeats his claims of widespread election fraud on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. All three social media sites remove the video.

Curfew begins in Washington, D.C. Officers arrest many who defy the order.

6:01pm: In what could be interpreted as an attempt to stoke the flames of a Capitol mob which has begun to disperse, President Trump sends a tweet in which he reiterates the claim that the election was stolen and encourages his supporters to “remember this day” going forward.

“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” he tweets. “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!"

Twitter quickly deletes it.

At no time that Wednesday since the Capitol siege began did these government and military leaders hear from the president. Not even the vice president heard from Trump.

6:14pm: Ashli Babbitt is pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Lawmakers come back to finish the process they started hours earlier: the certification of electoral college votes for President-elect Joe Biden.

Senator Tuberville votes in favor of objections to certifying Biden’s election.

An emotional Pence calls the Senate back into session. “To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win,” he says. “Violence never wins. Freedom wins, and this is still the people’s house.”

8:20pm:  Former President Barack Obama says history will rightly remember the violence at the Capitol as a moment of great dishonor and shame for the nation.  Obama say the violence was “incited by a sitting president” who has baselessly lied about the outcome of the presidential election. He has convinced his supporters that he lost the election to President-elect Joe Biden only because Democrats cheated, a false claim.  Obama says it should not have come as a surprise, and that for two months “a political party and its accompanying media ecosystem has too often been unwilling to tell their followers the truth.”

8:35pm:  Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer says President Donald Trump “bears a great deal of the blame” after a mob loyal to him stormed the U.S. Capitol.  As the Senate reconvenes to count electoral votes that will confirm Democrat Joe Biden’s win, Schumer says that Jan. 6, 2021, will “live forever in infamy” and will be a stain on the democracy.  Schumer said the events “did not happen spontaneously. ...The president, who promoted conspiracy theories that motivated these thugs, the president, who exhorted them to come to our nation’s capital, egged them on.”

8:36pm:  Facebook blocks Trump's page for 24 hours.

8:45pm:  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says Congress “will not be deterred” in confirming the results of the presidential election hours after supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol.  The Republican leader reopens the Senate vowing to finish confirming the Electoral College for President-elect Joe Biden. McConnell says demonstrators “tried to disrupt our democracy. They failed.”

8:55pm:  Multiple Republican senators have reversed course and now say they won’t object to congressional certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.  Senator Steve Daines of Montana, Mike Braun of Indiana and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia all say in light of the violence they would stand down from planned objections to Biden’s win. Loeffler says that the “violence, the lawlessness, and siege of the halls of Congress” were a “direct attack” on the “sanctity of the American democratic process.”  All three had previously signed on to Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud to explain his defeat. Loeffler has just days left in her term. She lost her Senate race to Democrat Raphael Warnock earlier Wednesday.

9:00pm:  Renewed conversations occur inside the White House about mass resignations by mid-level aides who are responsible for operations of the office of the president.  Aides are torn between fears of what more would happen if they leave and a desire to register their disgust with the POTUS. 

In the House, where Pelosi gavels the session to order an hour later, at 9 p.m., the Republican resistance was greater still. One hundred twenty-one House members, nearly two-thirds of the Republican conference, voted against counting Arizona’s votes, and even more, 138, voted against counting Pennsylvania’s.

9:15pm:  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says Congress’ certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election win will show the world it won’t back down. She says that every four years the ritual provides an example to the world of American democracy.  Pelosi says, “Despite the shameful actions of today, we will still do so, we will be part of a history that shows the world what America is made of.”  Pelosi, a Roman Catholic, notes that Wednesday is the feast of the Epiphany and prayed that the violence would be “an epiphany to heal” for the country.

9:32pm: Senator Mitt Romney calls Capitol Hill protests an "insurrection" and those who object to the results of the 2020 election will be seen as "complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy. They'll be remembered for their role in this shameful episode in American history"

9:45pm:  House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is comparing violence at the U.S. Capitol to protests against racial injustice over the summer after the killing of George Floyd by police.  McCarthy says, “Mobs don’t rule America. Laws rule America. It was true when our cities were burning this summer and it is true now.”  The comment gets loud applause from Republicans. Democrats in the chamber sat silently.

9:55pm:  Republican Senator Josh Hawley says he is going forward with his objection to the Electoral College results in Pennsylvania despite the violent breach at the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump. The Missouri senator says he does not support violence but said the Senate should go forward with a legal process that includes his objections.  Hawley says his objections should be debated “peacefully, without violence, without attacks, without bullets.” He says he hoped lawmakers would not brush his concerns aside because of the violence earlier Wednesday, including the death of a protester inside the Capitol.

10:10pm:  Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says a commission to examine the 2020 election is not a proper next step and affirmed that Joe Biden is the “legitimate president of the United States.”  He calls it a “uniquely bad idea to delay this election,” referencing the commission idea proposed by his fellow South Carolina Republican, Senator Tim Scott (R-SC).  Graham says, “Count me out. Enough is enough.”  Graham said that “if you’re a conservative,” the idea that Vice President Mike Pence could reverse the results of the election, as President Donald Trump had urged him to do, was “the most offensive concept in the world.”

10:15pm: The Senate votes 93–6 against the objection raised by a handful of Republican senators against the counting of Arizona's electoral votes.

10:46pm: Mayor Muriel E. Bowser of Washington, DC issued an order warning that extremists who support President Trump might continue to wreak havoc in the nation’s capital:

“I have issued Mayor’s Order 2021-003, extending the public emergency declared earlier today for a total of 15 days, until and unless provided for by further Mayoral Order.”Even without police stopping and frisking random protesters, 75 people are arrested throughout the day on January 6th. Yet, a wide array of weapons are confiscated among the protesters who are arrested, to include a rifle, a crossbow and 11 Molotov cocktails — all found in the car of an Alabama man. Others have brass knuckles and pocket knives, stun guns and "stinger whips." In all, police recovered a dozen guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition from seven people who were arrested before and after the Capitol riot, according to a review of court documents. One man, Lonnie Coffman of Alabama, is found with a massive arsenal that included five guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Another man, Cleveland Grover Meredith, drove to Washington from Colorado with a Tavor X95 rifle with a telescopic sight, a Glock 9 mm with high-capacity magazines and more than 2,500 rounds of ammunition, including at least 320 rounds of "armor-piercing bullets.”

11:30pm: The House votes 303–121 to reject the Republican objection to the counting of Arizona's electoral votes.

Workers begin installing a seven-foot fence surrounding the perimeter of the Capitol. 

Thursday, January 7th

President Trump's statement acknowledging that he would leave office on January 20 can not be posted on the President’s Twitter or Facebook feeds because both accounts have been suspended by the companies. Instead, it is released via the Twitter account of Trump’s social media director, Dan Scavino, who frequently tweets on his behalf.

12:15am: Representative Scott Perry (R-PA) and Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) objected to the counting of Pennsylvania's electoral votes, triggering a two-hour debate in both chambers.

2:20am: A small number of representatives nearly have a physical confrontation in the House chamber. After Representative Conor Lamb (D-PA) said the attack on the Capitol by the angry pro-Trump mob earlier in the day was "inspired by lies, the same lies you are hearing in this room tonight," Representative Morgan Griffith (R-VA) objected to Lamb's remarks; the objection was rejected by Speaker Pelosi. Several minutes later, members of both parties have a heated verbal discussion in the middle aisle in close proximity, breaking up when Pelosi called for order.

With his presidency threatened by resignations and potential impeachment, Trump acknowledges that a transfer of power to a new administration is underway.

3:49am: Statement by President Donald J. Trump on the Electoral Certification: “Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th.

A 12-hour lockdown of Trump’s account ends and the president uses his restored account to post a video in which he acknowledges for the first time that his presidency will end soon.

Shortly after Twitter unlocked Trump's account, Trump releases a video statement condemning the violence at the Capitol, saying that:  “Congress has certified the results: A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20th,” Trump says in the video. “My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly, and seamless transition of power. This moment calls for healing and reconciliation.”

The video, Trump’s closest advisers say, is likely the closest he will come to a concession speech. The president says he wishes he hadn’t done it because he fears that the calming words make him look weak.

Ivanka Trump and her brother Don Jr. later retweeted the video.

After arriving in Washington, D.C. from Colorado, Cleveland Meredith sends a text that says: “I may wander over to the Mayor’s office and put a 5.56 in her skull, FKG C***.” 

Later that same day he sends a text that says: “Strategizing on best way to assault this city . . . do I go in fast on Sportbike or do I go in the back door on dirt bike . . . Staying one more day since I got here late, need to FK with these commies.” 

The next text directly threatens House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, stating he was going to kill her on live television:  “Thinking about heading over to Pelosi C***’s speech and putting a bullet in her noggin on Live TV.” 

9:30pm: Brian Sicknick, the US Capitol Police dies. Sicknick is the fifth person to die as a result of the Capitol protest violence.

Deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, White House social secretary Rickie Niceta and deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews also resign.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who was serving as the special envoy to Northern Ireland, White House Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow also resign.

Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund resigns Thursday under pressure from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders. He defends his department’s response, saying officers “acted valiantly when faced with thousands of individuals involved in violent riotous actions.” Two other top security officials, Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger and House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, also resigned.

5 people are dead as a direct result of the Siege on the Capitol. Another fifteen officers are hospitalized, with 56 in total  reported injured. For days, the White House is criticized for not flying the mast at half mast for the death of officer Sicknick.

January 7:

A screen grab from surveillance video released by prosecutors shows Kenneth Harrelson at the Comfort Inn Ballston in Arlington, Va.,"wheeling what appears to be at least one rifle case down a hallway," Jan. 7, 2020.

An image pulled from surveillance video at the Comfort Inn shows Harrelson wheeling "what appears to be at least one rifle case down a hallway and towards the elevator" the day after the riot.  Harrelson dropped his weapons off with the QRF at the Comfort Inn Ballston on January 5, and then retrieved those weapons on the morning of January 7th as he leaves the Washington, D.C., area.

On January 10, officer Howard Liebengood, who had helped defend the Capitol, commits suicide. That day, President Trump finally orders the White House flag lowered to half mast.