A supporter of Trump, with the flag of the Confederate States, in the Capitol.JIM LO SCALZO / EFE
"Today is going to be a historic day in the history of our nation."
The first sentence of the email sent by Donald Trump's team to his followers at 1:26 p.m. on Wednesday, the umpteenth message asking them for money for their lunatic crusade not to leave the White House as a loser, was going to be painfully prescient.
"Congress will either certify or object to the election result," the message continued.
But it was not the legislators to whom the text pointed out who were to make the day historic, but some of the president's followers.
At the same time they received the message, the leader of the Republican majority in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, concluded his speech in the upper house of the Washington Capitol.
He harshly rejected, definitely leaving behind weeks of unusual silence, President Trump's unfounded allegations of fraud.
His efforts to reverse a US election, the veteran senator warned, would send democracy into a "death spiral."
In the Capitol, the noises from outside were heard louder and louder, according to the accounts of the people inside.
The slogans of the hordes crowding in front of the Capitol, arriving from the White House, where their already heated spirits had been stirred by the commander-in-chief, were clearly heard.
“If you don't fight like hell, you won't have a country anymore.
Let the weak go.
This is the hour of force, ”Trump told his thousands of followers.
From the Capitol windows you could see the approaching danger.
"I looked out the window and could see how outnumbered the Capitol police were," Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips told the Associated Press.
Suddenly, shortly after 2:00 p.m., Vice President Mike Pence, who is president of the Senate, received the signal that he should leave the House, for safety reasons.
In the Senate press room, located just above the Chamber, employees explained that there were plans to lock the doors shut in case the situation worsened.
It did not take long to go from the conditional to the present.
The old public address system repeated the message that no one should go near the windows.
The employees proceeded to close the doors of the press room.
Then, always according to the witnesses' account, journalists were asked to go into the Chamber, separated by a door from the press room.
Armed agents ran through the two floors of the Upper House, closing each door.
Below, clashes between the assailants and the police took place under the same scaffolding installed for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, which will be held in two weeks.
The protesters broke down the barricades installed at the foot of the Capitol stairs and stormed the building.
"This is our Congress," they shouted, "we have the right to be here."
Windows were smashed, pepper sprayed, flags and banners hung on the Capitol statues.
They photographed themselves at the senators' desks, on the marble platform reserved for the vice president, and in the congressmen's offices, posing with their feet on the tables.
Soon, without the police being able to stop it, the protesters had spread throughout the building, up to the third floor.
The agents asked people to hide.
The building was closed.
It was warned by the public address system that, due to an “external security threat”, no one could enter or leave the building.
The police began to evacuate the offices of the congressmen.
"They knocked on the door," Democrat Chris Pappas told the Associated Press, "and they told us to drop everything and get out as fast as we can."
The assailants ended up breaking into the already empty offices.
In a video of the British network Itv, one showed as a trophy a torn piece of the wooden plaque with the name of Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democratic majority in the Lower House.
"The protesters are in the building."
They were the last words heard on the Senate's live audio signal.
"There have been shots," Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar read from her cell phone.
One of his escorts grabbed Mitch McConnell, who has a slight limp from polio as a child, by the arm and led him through the hallways to safety.
Half an hour later the entire chamber was vacated.
The policemen also took away the boxes containing the Electoral College certificates, the documents that the legislators had to open, read and confirm in what should have been a ritual celebrating the democratic process.
After a while, the raiders had taken over the noble hall.
Across the Capitol, in the House of Representatives, a much larger space than the Senate, the scene was repeating itself.
The security agents asked the congressmen to put on the gas masks they have under the chairs, led them to an area of the room and ordered them to lie down.
Police officers blocked the front door with a wooden sideboard, as seen in a photograph, and stood behind the cabinet pointing their pistols to the outside of the room.
After a while, the agents, weapons ready to fire, escorted the congressmen to safety.
They went down the elevators, as the assailants had taken the stairs, to the network of corridors and tunnels that extends under the floor of the Capitol, a well-protected structure, built after the attacks of September 11.
But the assailant followers of the president also got there.
Some congressmen and staff from the building were then escorted to a cafeteria in those rooms, on the ground floor of one of the lower house office buildings.
Amid the chaos, congressional workers managed to distribute, between 4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., bottles of water and disposable boxes with dinner.
Brussels sprouts, chicken, mashed potatoes.
As night fell, the public address system recalled that the capital was under a curfew.
In the legislators' conversations, the idea of returning to the Chamber, to proceed with their work, in a gesture of democratic strength spread.
After 6.30 pm, with the police sirens still in the background, applause was heard in the room where the senators were meeting.
Congress had decided to resume the session that same night.
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