A day after the apocalyptic scenes at Capitol building on Wednesday, President-elect Joe Biden alleged the US authorities and police were more lenient to the pro-Trump mob than anti-racism demonstrators who were forcibly dispersed by police in Washington last year.
“No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,” Biden said, AFP reported.
“We all know that’s true, and it is unacceptable.”
Hundreds of protesters broke down barriers and doors to invade the seat of the US legislature, an unprecedented act that played out on live television.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris too took to Twitter to bring out the inherent bias towards the treatment of the two. She wrote: “We have witnessed two systems of justice: one that let extremists storm the U.S. Capitol yesterday, and another that released tear gas on peaceful protestors last summer. It’s simply unacceptable.”
The Black Lives Matter protests last summer in Washington, in particular, were met with a large force of federal law enforcement and National Guardsmen.
Talking about the invasion of the Capitol building, Biden, who takes office on January 20, said, “Yesterday, in my view, was one of the darkest days in the history of our nation — an unprecedented assault on our democracy.”
The former Vice President to Barack Obama denied calling the thousands, who stormed US Capitol and interrupted a joint session of Congress where lawmakers were set to certify the results of November 3 election, as “protesters.”
“What we witnessed yesterday was not dissent. It was not a disorder. It was not a protest. It was chaos. They weren’t protesters. Don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists,” he added.
Launching a scathing attack on the outgoing President, Biden said the Trump had “unleashed an all-out assault on our institutions of democracy – and yesterday was the culmination.”
The president-elect heaped specific scorn on Trump for encouraging his supporters not to accept his defeat at the polls, which ended in deadly chaos at the Capitol.
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Trump and his supporters still maintain, without any evidence, that Biden’s win was rooted in massive voter fraud.
The attack on the Capitol, where Biden formerly served for decades as a senator, took place two weeks before he is to take office, following his November 3 election victory over Trump.
Speaking shortly afterwards, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the President of committing a “seditious act” and said he was “deadly” to Americans and US democracy.
There has been an “unspeakable assault on our nation and our people”, Pelosi said, Sky News reported.
She called for Trump to be removed from office immediately and said her party was pushing for his impeachment.
The Democrat said she was expecting a quick decision from Vice President Mike Pence about whether to invoke the 25th amendment in seeking to remove Trump from office.
