US President Donald Trump on Friday tweeted a "Stop the Steal" protest rally in Washington DC at 11 a.m., local time, on 6 January, the same day that a joint session in the US Congress will take place to certify the presidential election results.
It has been several weeks since Trump teased his 6 January event, tweeting on 19 December about a "big protest" upcoming in Washington DC and urging followers to "be there", adding that it "will be wild!"
The tweet in which Trump announced the rally, however, was deleted shortly after the president posted it.
The BIG Protest Rally in Washington, D.C., will take place at 11.00 A.M. on January 6th. Locational details to follow. StopTheSteal!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2021
After the initial tweet was removed, Trump posted an identical one several minutes later.
The BIG Protest Rally in Washington, D.C., will take place at 11.00 A.M. on January 6th. Locational details to follow. StopTheSteal!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2021
Announcing a protest rally on 6 January, Trump in a follow-up tweet posted that "massive amounts of evidence" will be presented on that day, doubling down on his claims that he "won, BIG!".
Massive amounts of evidence will be presented on the 6th. We won, BIG! https://t.co/ymncRrNR5t
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2021
Trump, along with several Republican allies, has been contesting the election outcome, claiming "massive election fraud" and dubbing Joe Biden, who received the majority of the popular and the Electoral College votes, "a fake president".
GOP Representative Mo Brooks is leading the initiative to object to the certification of the election results in Congress. At least one Senator, Josh Hawley, announced on Thursday that he will object the certification, while another, GOP Senator-elect Tommy Tuberville, said he was mulling the possibility of supporting the initiative.
Vice President Mike Pence, who will be leading the joint session, has refused to join the initiative. On Thursday, Pence asked a federal judge to dismiss a motion filed by GOP Representative Louie Gohmert, in which the latter attempted to prove that Pence has the right to determine which electoral votes will be counted during the congressional review.
“Plaintiffs have presented this Court with an emergency motion raising a host of weighty legal issues about the manner in which the electoral votes for President are to be counted. But these plaintiffs' suit is not a proper vehicle for addressing those issues because plaintiffs have sued the wrong defendant”, Pence said in his response to the lawsuit.
On 14 December, 2020, the Electoral College handed Joe Biden 306 votes, with Donald Trump receiving 232. The sitting president, however, appears to remain committed to his refusal to concede, continuing to declare that the election was "rigged" and "one not even fit for third world countries".
