Updated on January 5, 2021 at 3:37 am
NBC Universal, Inc.
Thousands of people are expected to be in D.C. to protest the 2020 election on Jan. 6, the day Congress meets to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the election.
Multiple groups have applied for permits for First Amendment activity on that day, and President Donald Trump has called on supporters to descend on D.C. for a wild protest.
Organizations planning demonstrations at Freedom Plaza include Women for America First, which filed a permit for 5,000 attendees, and the Eighty Percent Coalition, which estimates 10,000. The Silent Majority said it expects 250-500 to demonstrate near the Washington Monument.
Jan. 6 protests multiply as Trump continues to call supporters to Washington Marissa Lang Four seemingly competing rallies to demand that Congress overturn the results of the presidential election, which their participants falsely view as illegitimate, are scheduled on the day Congress is set to convene to certify electoral college votes, declaring President-elect Joe Biden the winner. The events will be headlined by Trump’s most ardent supporters, including recently pardoned George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during its Russia investigation, and longtime ally Roger Stone, whose sentence for seeking to impede a congressional probe into Russian election interference was commuted by Trump in July before being upgraded to a full pardon.
As Trump Supporters Plan Mass Election Protest, Businesses Prepare for Possible Violence
On 12/31/20 at 2:20 PM EST
Several Washington, D.C., businesses are preparing for possible violent protests in the coming week from supporters of President Donald Trump.
The Hotel Harrington in D.C. announced on Monday that it would be closed on January 6, which is the day that Congress will meet to affirm President-elect Joe Biden s victory in the 2020 election. Hotel Harrington will be closed on January 4, 5 and 6. We will not be accommodating guests, with the exception of our long-term residents who call our hotel home. Refunds will be made for all pre-paid reservations. Notifications are being sent to all reservation-holders beginning today, the hotel wrote in a statement. While we cannot control what happens outside of the hotel, we are taking additional steps to protect the safety of our visitors, guests and employees.
DC Hotel Where Proud Boys Often Stayed Will Be Closed Jan. 4 to 6
Hotel Harrington in Washington, D.C., where the Proud Boys often stayed in the past few months, announced it would be closed during the pro-Trump demonstration planned for next week for the safety of visitors and employees.
The hotel said in a statement posted on Facebook on Monday that the venue will be closed from Jan. 4–6 to all visitors except long-term dwellers. Management said the hotel would organize refunds for all visitors who have made pre-paid reservations.
The hotel announced the closure one day after The Washington Post published a report on how the Proud Boys have assembled at the hotel in the past few months. The report said that several hundred Proud Boys stayed at the hotel for a protest on Dec.12.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
A former top aide to Vice President Mike Pence said she was very concerned that there would be violence in Washington, DC, on January 6 because the president himself is encouraging it.
January 6 is the day Congress is scheduled to meet to finalize the result of the 2020 presidential election. This is what he does. He tweets. He incites it. He gets his followers and supporters to behave in this manner, and these people think that they re being patriotic because they are supporting Donald Trump, Olivia Troye, who became a Trump critic after leaving the White House in August, told MSNBC on Monday.