Media website Mediaite suggested some protesters who breached the Capitol on Wednesday intended to hang Vice President Mike Pence, quoting a Twitter post from a Reuters photo editor who said he overheard three people say they intended to ''execute him … as a traitor.''
Referring to photos of a replica gallows constructed outside during a rally protesting the congressional certification of the Electoral College vote, Mediate referred to Reuters News Pictures Editor Jim Bourg’s post and said it was a ''common line'' being repeated during Wednesday’s demonstration.
''I heard at least 3 different rioters at the Capitol say that they hoped to find Vice President Mike Pence and execute him by hanging him from a Capitol Hill tree as a traitor,'' Bourg wrote. ''It was a common line being repeated. Many more were just talking about how the VP should be executed.''
Mediate additionally quoted a Twitter post from Andrew Feinberg, who describes himself as a Washington reporter for the left-leaning British website The Independent, as seeing ''multiple photographs of pro-Trump rioters carrying law enforcement-style flex-cuffs. Rioters went looking for @VP, @SpeakerPelosi, @SenSchumer.
''It raises the question of whether there was an organized plan to take hostages.''
Pence left the floor of the Senate as police evacuated the chamber when the protesters breached the Capitol.
The Mediaite story juxtaposed the Twitter posts with President Donald Trump’s numerous posts that indicated Pence had the authority and should disqualify electors from several states where election results were disputed for fraud and other irregularities.
It also said photographs showed ''members of the mob with zip-ties, generally used as restraints by police.'' Zip ties are also known as cable ties, available at most hardware stores to bind cables together.
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