The U.S. Congress will vote to finalize the 2020 presidential election results on Wednesday, Jan. 6, and at least one high-ranking government official is “very concerned” that Trump is inciting violence for the occasion. Olivia Troye, a former top aide to Vice President Mike Pence, appeared on MSNBC on Monday to discuss the possibility. Troye joined the chorus of people calling on Trump to stop spreading conspiracy theories about the election results.
“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,” Troye said of the president’s rhetoric. Trump has not stopped claiming that the election was “rigged” with no supporting evidence, and has called for a “wild” rally in Washington, D.C. on the day Congress votes to certify the election results. Troye saw this as a thinly veiled call for violence in the streets.
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“In terms of his legacy, this is a president who calls himself the president of law and order, and we have seen anything but that,” Troye said. “We had a bombing on Christmas Day. We’ve had protests in the streets. This is all out of control. If that’s the legacy that he wants, he certainly has it.”
Trump announced a “big protest in DC on January 6th” on Twitter on Saturday, writing: “Be there, will be wild!” This call to action has alarmed many people, including business owners in the capital. According to a report by Business Insider, at least two downtown businesses have announced that they will be closed on Jan. 6 out of concern for the president’s “protest.”
“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,” read a statement from Hotel Harrington on Facebook. Congress’ vote is generally considered a formality in the election process since by now the losing candidate has usually conceded. Trump lost the election by millions of individual votes, and by 74 electoral college votes. So far, multiple investigations have turned up no substantial evidence of widespread voter fraud or election tampering.
It would have taken a massive conspiracy to rig an American election to this degree, making it almost impossible that Trump’s conspiracy theories are credible. Still, the fact that they come from the president himself has led to widespread confusion among his voters. It is not clear how many intend to visit Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6.
