WASHINGTON – The reminders of the siege were everywhere.On the very spot where President Joe Biden delivered his inaugural address, an insurrectionist mob had tried — and failed — to overturn his election just two weeks before.
Nearby, at the West Terrace doors, a Capitol police officer was brutally assaulted with a flagpole in a one of the siege's most chaotic moments.And from the podium, the starkest sight of all: a National Mall mostly empty, dotted with troops, the usual crowd of spectators replaced by a silent field of American flags.The Associated Press has the privilege of a seat on the inaugural platform every four years in a tradition dating as far back as anyone can remember.