America cannot accept that “political violence becomes the norm”: this is the warning that Joe Biden will launch to his compatriots in a few hours, a year following the violent assault on Capitol Hill by supporters of Donald Trump.
Demonstrator with bison horns, a young man who admitted to stealing a beer in the office of Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who took a desk… More than 725 supporters of the former president who had entered the seat of Congress have already been arrested as part of the huge FBI investigation. Since July, it has been doubling down on a parliamentary committee that seeks to establish the exact role of Donald Trump and his entourage in this assault.
The 79-year-old Democrat will speak at 9 a.m. this Thursday Eastern Coast Time (3 p.m. French time) in the Capitol’s “Hall of Statues”, along with Vice President Kamala Harris. “We have to decide today which nation we are going to be. Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as the norm? Are we going to be a nation that allows partisan officials to overturn the legally expressed will of the people? “, Will ask the president, in a direct allusion to Donald Trump, whom he never names.
A year following the events which shook American democracy, and while the wounds are not healed, the American president is determined to publicly evoke the “particular responsibility” of Donald Trump in this outburst of violence, has already indicated the White House. Joe Biden to “expose the significance of what happened on Capitol Hill and President Trump’s singular responsibility for the chaos and carnage we’ve seen,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said , Wednesday.
However, the former Republican president continues to claim, without proof, that he is the real winner of the election and that his victory was “stolen” from him and that the result of the November 2020 election is “the crime of the century.” . And according to a recent poll (Ipsos for Archyde.com), 55 percent of Republican voters still believe in fraud, a charge rejected by dozens of courts, state election services and members of Trump’s own administration.
If he canceled his speech scheduled for Thursday, postponing it to January 15 during a meeting in Arizona, it is to avoid a provocation that might embarrass the Republican tenors a little more. The leader of the Republicans in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, had estimated in February 2021 that the former president was “morally responsible” for the assault of January 6. But this Thursday, he will be far from Washington and its ceremonies, going, like many senators from his camp, to a mass in memory of the former Georgia senator Johnny Isakson, who died on December 19.
After Joe Biden’s speech, Kamala Harris will also speak. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi then planned a series of events to reflect the shock felt a year ago. A moment of silence will be respected then representatives will recount the attack which terrified them.
Four protesters lost their lives on January 6, 2021, a police officer died the day following his injuries and four officers have since committed suicide. Hundreds of people were injured. And since then, the Capitol, emblem of the American Nation, has been transformed into an entrenched camp.
VIDEO. “We had to undergo a medieval battle”: a police officer testifies on the attack on the Capitol