The US Capitol, the seat of American democracy, has been stormed by a pro-Donald Trump mob, egged on by the president in a desperate and violent effort to overturn the results of the election.
Minutes after the news spread that the vice-president had announced he would not do the president’s bidding and reverse Trump’s defeat to Joe Biden at the ballot box, hundreds of pro-Trump rioters broke down the barriers around the Capitol building, and surged forward.
Footage from inside the building showed that some pro-Trump rioters had reached one of the doors to the Capitol and smashed out the glass. A group managed to make their way to the atrium of the Senate Rotunda, carrying confederate flags. The Capitol police were outnumbered and seemed to melt away.
