Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said on Monday that she plans to speak with Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson this week as she weighs whether to support the Supreme Court nominee.
That attack was not a spontaneous outbreak of violence. Rather, it was the culmination of a steady stream of provocations by President Trump that were aimed at overturning the results of the presidential election, Collins said from the Senate floor.
Collins was one of seven GOP senators who voted on Saturday to convict Trump of inciting an insurrection. Though senators fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict the former president, it marked a significant bipartisan rebuke of his actions.
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Collins, during her floor speech, laid out a timeline for how she believed Trump had been priming the political atmosphere for the eventual violent mob by repeating false claims of widespread voter fraud.
Biden used his inauguration speech to urge unity after a tumultuous four years capped off by the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol when a mob of Trump supporters breached security as now-former Vice President Pence and members of Congress were ratifying Biden s electoral victory.
“To overcome these challenges, to restore the soul and secure the future of America requires so much more than words. It requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy: unity,” Biden said.
Biden is taking over a government that is deeply divided, with tensions in Washington running high amid an unprecedented level of security around the Capitol complex following the riot Jan. 6 that left five people dead.