How do we point back to Wednesday and do justice, in a sense, to how close this democracy came?

Hi, and welcome back to Amicus.

This is Slate's podcast about the law and the rule of law and the courts and the justice system.

I'm Dahlia Lithwick. I cover the law and the courts for Slate. This week, we're going to bring you another extra off-week edition of the show to talk about events at the National Capitol.

On Wednesday, as both houses of Congress convened to formally ratify the election of Joe Biden

as president of the United States, a mob of rioters, some armed, stormed the barricades

around the buildings, broke windows, climbed walls. Capitol Police,

tasked with defending the Capitol and members of Congress, were completely overwhelmed

as rioters smashed into both the House and the Senate chambers. Representatives were rushed

to secure locations, some of them pulled on gas masks.

After several hours and a small smattering of arrests, the insurrectionists mostly left the building,

just walking out the doors. The counting of electoral votes that had stopped that afternoon

continued into the evening and and early Thursday morning,

the election was finally formally called for Joe Biden.

As of this taping, five people are dead.

As of this taping, two members of Trump's cabinet have resigned.

As of this taping, talk of invoking the 25th Amendment has largely been quelled by Vice President Mike Pence.

As of this taping, articles of impeachment have been drawn up reportedly to be introduced in the House on Monday.

As of this taping, the United States reported its highest single-day COVID-19 death toll, surpassing 4,000 people on Thursday.

Our guest today is Joshua Gelzer. He serves as the founding executive director of the Institute for

Constitutional Advocacy and teaches law at Georgetown University Law Center.

Geltzer served from 2015 to 2017 as Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council staff,

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