Mike Pence has dismissed claims by Donald Trump that he could have stopped Joe Biden becoming president.
In his strongest rebuttal yet, the former vice-president said Donald Trump was wrong to suggest he had had the right to overturn the election.
Separately the Republican Party censured two of its top lawmakers for investigating the Capitol riots.
A mob stormed the Capitol as lawmakers met to confirm President Joe Biden’s poll win on January 6, 2021.
Four people died during the riots, and a police officer who suffered two strokes while defending the building died the following day.
The two legislators, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, are the only Republicans on a congressional select committee investigating the riots.
The statement by the Republican National Committee (RNC) accused Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger of helping to persecute “ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse”.
The RNC appeared to suggest rioters had been involved in legitimate political actions but RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel clarified that it was a reference to “legitimate political discourse that had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol”.
According to recent reports, the vote was passed by an overwhelming majority of the 168 RNC members at their winter meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The committee said it would “immediately cease any and all support of them” as party members without removing them from the party.
Both lawmakers issued statements in advance of the vote.
“The leaders of the Republican Party have made themselves willing hostages to a man who admits he tried to overturn a presidential election and suggests he would pardon January 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy,” Liz Cheney said.
They also received support from other opponents of Donald Trump in the party.
Senator Mitt Romney tweeted: “Shame falls on a party that would censure persons of conscience, who seek truth in the face of vitriol.”
Speaking in Orlando, Florida, Mike Pence was responding to Donald Trump’s comments on January 30 that he could have overturned the election if he had wanted to.
Donald Trump has falsely claimed that the election was stolen by Joe Biden.
Days later Donald Trump said the select committee should be investigating Mike Pence instead of the rioters.
Mike Pence responded: “President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone.
“And [current Vice-President] Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024.”
Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts have been suspended for two years.
The former president was barred indefinitely from both sites in January in the wake of posts he made on the Capitol riots, but last month Facebook’s Oversight Board criticized the open-ended penalty.
Facebook Inc. said Donald Trump’s actions were “a severe violation of our rules”.
The former president said the move was “an insult” to the millions who voted for him in last year’s presidential election.
Facebook’s move comes as the social media giant is also ending a policy shielding politicians from some content moderation rules.
It said that it would no longer give politicians immunity for deceptive or abusive content based on their comments being newsworthy.
Donald Trump’s ban was effective from the date of the initial suspension on January 7, Facebook’s vice-president of global affairs Nick Clegg said in a post.
“Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr. Trump’s suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available,” it added.
“If we determine that there is still a serious risk to public safety, we will extend the restriction for a set period of time and continue to re-evaluate until that risk has receded.”
On his return, Donald Trump will be held to “a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions,” for any violations, Nick Clegg’s statement noted.
In a statement issued from his Save America political action committee, Donald Trump said: “Facebook’s ruling is an insult to the record-setting 75m people, plus many others, who voted for us…”
“They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this censoring and silencing, and ultimately, we will win. Our country can’t take this abuse anymore!”
In a second statement on the two-year ban, Donald Trump attacked Facebook’s founder.
“Next time I’m in the White House there will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife,” he said.
The move by Facebook allows Donald Trump to return to the platform before the 2024 presidential election.
It also comes as the former president prepares to again hold the large scale in-person rallies that were a signature of his campaigns and presidency. One of his first is planned for Dallas, Texas, in early July, according to local media.
Earlier this week, it emerged that the communications platform set up by Donald Trump in the wake of his social media bans – From the Desk of Donald J. Trump – has been permanently shut down.
In addition to Facebook, which has over two billion monthly users, Donald Trump has also been banned from Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitch and other social media platforms over the January riot.
Last month, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican Trump ally, signed the first law in the US that punished tech companies for de-platforming politicians.
Susan Wojcicki said during an interview with the Atlantic Council on March 4: “It’s pretty clear that right now where we stand, that there still is that elevated risk of violence.”
She clarified that Donald Trump’s conduct had not led to a full ban on the platform.
YouTube operates under a three strike system and an account must receive all three strikes within 90 days to be permanently removed.
The suspension in January was Donald Trump’s first strike.
Rudy Giuliani, the former personal attorney to Donald Tump, received his second strike earlier this week for claiming the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Typically, a first strike results in a seven day suspension of an account, but Donald Trump’s has been prolonged due to a continued risk of violence.
After a large group of pro-Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building on January 6, the former president was banned across many social media outlets.
Donald Trump was banned from Twitter and suspended from Facebook.
Facebook’s Oversight Committee is currently looking at whether that suspension should be made permanent – however it’s not yet clear when they will rule.
Criminal charges have been filed for a reported 221 people involved in the Capitol riot.
Congress has certified Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the next president and vice-president of the United States.
The electoral votes were approved after both the Senate and the House of Representatives rejected objections to the votes in the states of Pennsylvania and Arizona.
The normally procedural session of Congress was disrupted on January 6 when supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building. The session resumed and continued through the night after the building was cleared.
The announcement was made by Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, one of the four “tellers” appointed by the House and Senate to count the Electoral College votes.
She said: “The report we make is that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be the president and vice president according to the ballots that have been given to us.”
VP Mike Pence, who as president of the Senate oversaw the certification process, confirmed to Congress that, of the 538 Electoral College votes cast, Joe Biden and Kamal Harris received 306 and Donald Trump and Mike Pence received 232 – mirroring the results of November’s election.
He said: “The announcement of the state of the vote by the President of the Senate shall be deemed as sufficient declaration of the persons elected President and Vice President of the United States, each for the term beginning on the 20th day of January, 2021 and shall be entered together with the list of the votes on the journals of the Senate and the House of Representatives.”
President Trump has just released a statement committing to “an orderly transition on January 20th” but repeating his unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.
“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,” the president said, in a comment published on his spokesperson’s Twitter account.
Meanwhile, Twitter has temporarily blocked Donald Trump from using his own account.
“I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!” he added.
More than 60 legal cases by Trump’s campaign team challenging the November result have failed.
Supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, alongside far-right pro-Trump groups, were planning the rally outside Congress for weeks.
QAnon is a baseless conspiracy theory that claims President Trump and a secret team of military intelligence officers have been waging a war against Satan-worshipping pedophiles in the Democratic party.
In addition, supporters of the “Stop the Steal” election movement, Proud Boys and other groups have been encouraging their followers to attend the march.
So-called “patriot caravans” and other initiatives were organized online to help transport activists to Washington DC in anticipation of today’s protest.
Many of those attending the rally had consumed viral conspiracy theories and misleading narratives about the presidential election on major online platforms, convinced that the vote was stolen from Donald Trump.
However, election officials have described the vote as the most secure in history.
Discussion on Gab and Parler, social media platforms popular with far-right groups banned from Facebook and Twitter, featured threats that anything other than Congress overturning the outcome would lead to “patriots” having to rescue their country from traitors, communists, Satanists and pedophiles.
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