Jefferson Thomas, a conservative political consultant in Colorado who ran Trump\u2019s 2020 reelection campaign in the state, tweeted that the riots were \u201cterrible\u201d and \u201can embarrassment to our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are built upon the very institutions these people are trying to ruin,\u201d He tweeted. \u201cThis isn\u2019t what I ever imagined when I signed up to #MAGA. Had I known then that this is how it would end, I never would\u2019ve joined.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buck said it\u2019s critical that Congress continues its work debating and approving the Electoral College results.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that we are willing to resume the debate, which is essential,\u201d he said. \u201cI am comfortable that we will have a peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 20. I think the American people need to understand there\u2019s not a single member of the House that doesn\u2019t want to see a peaceful transfer of power.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buck said he was on the U.S. House floor when the mob entered the building.<\/p>\n
The protesters abruptly interrupted the congressional proceedings in an eerie scene that featured official warnings directing people to duck under their seats for cover and put on gas masks after tear gas was used in the Capitol Rotunda.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey escorted the speaker out of the speaker\u2019s chair and out of the room. And then they locked the doors of the House floor and about five minutes later they came in and told us that we needed to put gas masks on because the Capitol had been breached and there was tear gas in the Capitol,\u201d Buck said. \u201cAbout 10 minutes after that, the glass panes on the doors of the House floor were being broken. It almost sounded like gunfire, but it clearly wasn\u2019t gunfire. It was just a metal object breaking the glass on the House floor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buck said members of Congress \u201cwere moving heavy objects in front of those doors to try to help the police.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen they evacuated the floor. We went through the tunnels to evacuation points,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n
U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Arvada, who was not in the Capitol when rioters breached the building, said he does think the president bears some responsibility for Wednesday\u2019s unrest. He said he disagrees with Buck\u2019s statements that the riot wasn\u2019t Trump\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s wrong if he says the president didn\u2019t have anything to do with this,\u201d Perlmutter said. \u201c\u2026 I think the president has a lot of responsibility for this. The incendiary language. The refusing to accept the results of the vote of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Perlmutter said he is hopeful that Wednesday will be an inflection point and that the highly charged politics that led to Wednesday\u2019s riot will start to dissipate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m pissed. And I\u2019m sad. And I\u2019m angry,\u201d he said. \u201cThose are parts of what I feel. I also feel like I\u2019m hopeful in that both sides of the aisle start listening to each other. We tone down the rhetoric. That we try to work together.\u201d The Colorado Sun tried to reach other members of Colorado\u2019s congressional delegation on Wednesday. U.S. Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet, both Democrats, are safe, as are U.S. Reps. Jason Crow, D-Aurora.<\/p>\n
Crow, a former Army Ranger and Bronze Star recipient, was photographed taking shelter on the U.S. House floor. \u201cI knew there was risk of this,\u201d Crow said on MSNBC, questioning why more security preparations weren\u2019t made.<\/p>\n
Crow vowed to return to the House and certify the presidential election.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have stopped the coup attempt and will be returning to the Capitol today to finish the business of the people,\u201d he tweeted. \u201cWe will never back down, we will return.\u201d<\/p>\n
U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, tweeted that she was safe. U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs, said he is safe, too.<\/p>\n
The wife of U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Lafayette, tweeted that the lawmaker is safe.<\/p>\n
The chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Rifle, said she and her staff are safe. Boebert, who tweeted in the morning that \u201cToday is 1776,\u201d later tweeted that the violence was inexcusable.<\/p>\n\n
In Colorado, the legislative session doesn\u2019t start until Jan. 13 but lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee abruptly adjourned their meeting shortly before 2 p.m. in response to the scene in the nation\u2019s capital, according to a tweet from state Sen. Chris Hansen, D-Denver.<\/p>\n
Dozens of protesters were also gathered at the Colorado Capitol midday. There were no reports of violence or destruction associated with the demonstrations in Denver.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2018The president didn\u2019t order anybody to do this,\u2019 Colorado Republican says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,13,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-49474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87591,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49474\/revisions\/87591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49474"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=49474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}