Congress validates Joe Biden’s presidential election victory after Wednesday’s violence

U.S. Congress has formally validated Joe Biden’s presidential election victory after a day of violence that saw Donald Trump supporters flood the halls of the Capitol building.

The House and Senate certified the Democrat’s electoral college win early Thursday morning.

President Donald Trump has issued a statement saying there will be an orderly transition on Jan. 20.

In the statement, Trump still lamented his loss, saying he “totally” disagrees with the outcome of the election, and “the facts bear me out.”

He also took the opportunity to describe his own tenure as the “greatest first term in presidential history.”

Trump has spent the last two months refusing to concede the election and making baseless allegations of mass voter fraud.

Those claims have been rejected by dozens of courts and Republican officials, including his former attorney general.

Police in Washington, D.C. say four people are dead following Wednesday’s chaos.

They say the dead include one woman who was shot by the U.S. Capitol Police as a mob tried to break through a barricaded door.

Three others died in what’s being described as “medical emergencies.”

Dozens of people have been arrested.

Police say both law enforcement and Trump supporters deployed chemical irritants during the occupation of the Capitol building before it was cleared Wednesday evening by law enforcement.

They say two pipe bombs were recovered, one outside the Democratic National Committee and one outside the Republican National Committee.

In an unprecedented step, Twitter suspended the account of U.S. President Donald Trump for 12 hours Wednesday after he repeatedly posted false accusations about the integrity of the election.

It threatened him with a permanent ban.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube earlier in the day removed a short video Trump posted in which he urged supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol to go home while at the same repeating false attacks about the presidential election.

We’ve assessed two policy violations against President Trump’s Page which will result in a 24-hour feature block, meaning he will lose the ability to post on the platform during that time.

— Facebook Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) January 7, 2021