Pro-Trump protests decry election loss

Fireworks go off in a group of Proud Boys as police try to keep them separate from other...
Fireworks go off in a group of Proud Boys as police try to keep them separate from other protesters in Washington DC on Saturday. Photo: Reuters
Conservative groups alleging without evidence that President-elect Joe Biden stole the US election gathered for protests across the country on Saturday, including one in Washington that threatened to turn violent as darkness fell.

Organisers of Stop The Steal, linked to pro-Trump operative Roger Stone, and church groups urged supporters to participate in "Jericho Marches" and prayer rallies.

But in downtown Washington, tensions rose after dark as scores of pro-Trump "Proud Boys" protesters and "Antifa" counter-protesters faced off, separated by police in riot gear and on bicycles.

Around 200 members of the Proud Boys, a violent far right group, had joined the marches earlier on Saturday near the Trump hotel. Many wore combat fatigues and ballistic vests, carried helmets and flashed hand signals used by white nationalists.

The two groups shouted insults at each other across a street near McPherson Square and some set off fireworks, but police kept them apart, according to a Reuters reporter on the scene.

Police pepper-sprayed at least two counter-protesters before the Proud Boys left the area and regrouped several blocks away.

Protests were also planned in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona, where Trump's campaign has sought to overturn vote counts.

Supporters of President Donald Trump argue with a police officer during a protest in Washington,...
Supporters of President Donald Trump argue with a police officer during a protest in Washington, DC. Photo: Reuters
TRUMP CASTIGATES SUPREME COURT 

Trump on Saturday lambasted the Supreme Court for declining to take a case he hoped would overturn Joe Biden's election victory and called Attorney General William Barr a "disappointment."

The nation's high court late on Friday rejected an unprecedented lawsuit by Texas seeking to throw out voting results from four states.

The decision comes ahead of a meeting by the US Electoral College on Monday to make Biden's victory official.

Trump, a Republican, has refused to concede despite losing to Biden. The Democratic former vice president won 306 votes to Trump's 232 in the state-by-state Electoral College, which allots votes to all 50 states and the District of Columbia based on population.

"The Supreme Court had ZERO interest in the merits of the greatest voter fraud ever perpetrated on the United States of America," Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday morning, calling the decision a "disgraceful miscarriage of justice."

Trump has alleged widespread election fraud without evidence, while Biden has proceeded to plan his administration, appointing senior advisers and making cabinet picks despite the president's efforts to undermine his legitimacy.

Trump had touted the Texas case as a potential game changer in his efforts to overturn the election result and openly called on the Supreme Court and state legislators to help. More than 100 Congressional Republicans and 17 states signed onto the lawsuit.

But in a brief order the court said Texas did not have legal standing to bring the case. The three justices nominated by Trump - Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh - signed on to the order without comment.

The Trump campaign and its allies have filed dozens of lawsuits challenging the vote count in numerous states, but state and federal judges have rejected almost every one. Trump has shown little interest in giving up despite the repeated court defeats, writing on Twitter on Saturday, "WE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT!!!"

On Saturday in Wisconsin alone, Trump lost a federal lawsuit even as sceptical state Supreme Court justices grilled one of his lawyers in another case.

US District Judge Brett Ludwig, a Trump appointee, threw out what he described as the president's "extraordinary" effort to overturn the state's results in his favor.

"Plaintiff asks that 'the Rule of Law be followed,'" the judge wrote. "It has been."

MASKLESS PROTESTS

Trump's supporters carrying flags and signs made their way in small knots toward Congress and the Supreme Court through downtown Washington, which was closed to traffic by police vehicles and dump trucks.

Few of the marchers wore masks, despite soaring Covid-19 deaths and cases, defying a mayoral directive for them to be worn outside. Several thousand people rallied in Washington, fewer than during a similar protest last month.

As some in the crowd echoed far right conspiracy theories about the election, a truck-pulled trailer flew Trump 2020 flags and a sign reading "Trump Unity" while blaring the country song God Bless the U.S.A.

"It's clear the election has been stolen," said Mark Paul Jones of Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, who sported a tricorner Revolutionary War hat as he walked toward the Supreme Court with his wife.

Trump "is being railroaded out of office," he said, adding that Biden won with the complicity of the Supreme Court, FBI, Department of Justice and CIA. The Supreme Court "didn't even take the time to hear the case," Jones said.

Eddy Miller of Philadelphia, who was selling Trump campaign T-shirts, said he was sure "there was fraud despite what I see on the news" about court rulings striking down fraud allegations.

BATTLE OF JERICHO

Some protesters referenced the Biblical miracle of the battle of Jericho, in which the walls of the city crumbled after soldiers and priests blowing horns marched around it.

In his speech, Flynn told the protesters they were all standing inside Jericho after breaching its walls.

Ron Hazard of Morristown, New Jersey, was one of five people who stopped at the Justice Department to blow shofars - a ram's horn used in Jewish religious ceremonies - to bring down "the spiritual" walls "of corruption."

"We believe what is going on in this county is an important thing. It's a balance between biblical values and anti-biblical values," Hazard said.

His small group, including one member who wore a Jewish prayer shawl known as a tallit, are Christians "who love the Jewish people. We love Israel," he said.

Comments

I thought he was going to be marched out of the Whitehouse in chains to screams of "lock him up". Seems like many around the world have underestimated how many americans feel about Trump. Or maybe they figured out the election was a sham?

How do 'Conservative' Americans feel about Trump?

We don't know, he's supported by Right wing rabble rousers.