GARFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio — Seven buses filled with supporters of President Donald Trump left the old Kmart parking lot on Rockside Road in Garfield Heights overnight for a trip to Washington D.C. to join thousands of other supporters ahead of the Electoral College count Wednesday.
Watch the protesters gather in D.C. ahead of the Electoral College vote:
Around 250-300 supporters were seen carrying signs and flags as they boarded the bus that departed from Garfield Heights just after 2 a.m. A News 5 photographer at the boarding location witnessed only about a dozen people wearing masks.
Ohioans and others from across the country are expected to be outside of the White House and U.S. Capitol throughout Wednesday. They say it’s not about who is in the White House, it’s about making sure how he got there is fair.
“We’re not arguing about whether Donald Trump won or not. We’re arguing about whether we are a nation that can conduct a fair election or not,” said Tom Zawistowski, Executive Director of the Portage County Tea Party and President We The People Convention.
The groups’ grievances mirror those of President Trump, who insisted at a rally in Georgia Monday night he was cheated out of victory, even though Democratic and Republican election officials in the battleground states that Biden won have repeatedly verified the results and have said there has been no widespread voter fraud that would affect the outcomes of the presidential election in their states. The repeated attempts by the president’s legal team to challenge election results in court have also failed.
Overnight, some protesters clashed with police in Washington D.C. Video from the demonstration on Tuesday showed police clashing with protesters, and at one point, police sprayed the crowd with a chemical agent.
While some members of the House from Ohio have expressed their intention to challenge the Electoral College results in Congress on Wednesday, Ohio's Republican U.S. Senator, Rob Portman, said he will not.
“I voted for President Trump, campaigned for him as one of his Ohio co-chairs, and believe his policies are better for Ohio and America,” he said. “But after two months of recounts and legal challenges, not a single state recount changed a result and, of the dozens of lawsuits filed, not one found evidence of fraud or irregularities widespread enough to change the result of the election. This was the finding of numerous Republican-appointed judges and the Trump Administration’s own Department of Justice. Every state has now weighed in and certified its electoral slate based on its vote and the process set out in the Constitution.”
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