‘What the hell is this?’ Pence is heard asking as Trump supporters storm US Capitol

Supporters of President Trump's baseless claims that lost the election to voter fraud stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Shutterstock

By Jerry Mitchell
Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting

Mississippi U.S Rep. Bennie Thompson was among 200 sitting in the U.S. Senate gallery Wednesday, listening to debate over presidential electors when he began to get texts about an angry crowd outside the Capitol.

“All of a sudden they rushed the vice president out of the room (just after 2 p.m). He was saying, ‘What the hell is this?’” said Thompson, a Democrat.

After about 10 minutes, he said he and others in the Senate gallery were told to lay on the floor, where they stayed for the next 20 minutes.

What they didn’t know was that the Capitol had been breached and that the doors had all been locked, he said. A person who breached the Capitol was reportedly shot and taken away by ambulance.

As they were escorted out of the Capitol, “we saw a bunch of people spread eagle,” he said. “They had gotten all the way to the third floor.”

Security escorted him and the others to the basement and armed them with tear gas and gas masks in case they encountered trouble leaving the Capitol, he said. “It was unnerving.”

Those on the outside knew far more about what was happening than those inside the Capitol, he said. “These Proud Boys and others, they’re crazy. (President) Trump has been egging them on all day.

“The law is the law. At some point, you’ve got to decide if you’re going to be a damn renegade or follow the law.”

At a noontime rally leading up to the bedlam, Trump had urged the crowd to march to the Capitol. “We will never give up,” he told the crowd.

In the wake of his supporters storming the Capitol, Trump issued a restrained call for peace but did not urge them to disperse.

Thompson said he believes the protesters were upset at Trump’s November defeat, followed by the apparent election of two Democratic senators in Georgia in Tuesday’s runoff.

“They just can’t stand it,” he said. “Jan. 20 can’t come soon enough.”

Jerry Mitchell is an investigative reporter for the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization that is exposing wrongdoing, educating and empowering Mississippians, and raising up the next generation of investigative reporters. Sign up for MCIR’s newsletters here.

Email him at Jerry.Mitchell@MississippiCIR.org and follow him on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.