Thousands of US President Donald Trump’s supporters have returned to Washington for rallies to back his desperate efforts to subvert the election.
They cheered as Mr Trump flew overhead in the Marine One helicopter on his way out of town for a US Army-Navy American football game in New York on Saturday.
The rallies are intended as a show of force just two days before the Electoral College meets to formally elect Joe Biden as the 46th president.
Few attendees wore masks, despite soaring COVID-19 deaths and cases, defying a mayoral directive for them to be worn outside.
Mr Trump, whose term will end on 20 January, refuses to concede, while clinging to baseless claims of fraud that have been rejected by state and federal courts, and on Friday by the Supreme Court.
Mr Trump tweeted his apparent surprise on Saturday morning at the rallies, publicly known for weeks.
“Wow! Thousands of people forming in Washington for Stop the Steal. Didn’t know about this, but I’ll be seeing them! (hash)MAGA.”
Mr Trump left the White House around noon for the trip to the US Military Academy, and as Marine One passed over the rally on the National Mall, cheers went up.
At a pro-Trump demonstration in Washington a month ago, Mr Trump thrilled supporters when he passed by in his motorcade en route to his Virginia golf club.
Saturday’s gathering, called the “Jericho March”, was described on its website as a “prayer rally” with speakers “praying for the walls of corruption and election fraud to fall down”.
Members of the far-right group the Proud Boys gesture the ‘white power’ hand sign as they gather in Freedom Plaza, in Washington, DC, USA, 12 December 2020
EPA
About 200 members of the Proud Boys, a violent far-right group, joined the march near the Trump Hotel. Many wore combat fatigues, ballistic vests, and carried helmets.
Some members of the Proud Boys, flashing hand signals used by white supremacists, shouted and exchanged insults with counter-protesters at Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House.
The two sides were separated by a line of police on bicycles.
More than 50 federal and state court rulings have upheld Mr Biden’s victory over Mr Trump.
The US Supreme Court on Friday rejected a long-shot lawsuit filed by Texas and backed by Trump seeking to throw out voting results in four states.
“Whatever the ruling was yesterday … everybody take a deep deep breath,” retired Army General Mike Flynn, Mr Trump’s former national security adviser, told protesters in front of the Supreme Court, referring to the court’s refusal to hear the Texas case.
Gen Flynn who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contacts with the former Russian ambassador, spoke in his first public address since Mr Trump pardoned him on 24 November.
“My charge to you is to go back to where you are from” and make demands, he told the crowd, without being more specific. The US Constitution is “not about collective liberty it is about individual liberties, and they designed it that way,” he said.
Additional reporting by Reuters.
