Tennessee senators abandon objections, Congress certifies Biden win

Tennessee’s Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty ditched their attempt to overthrow the presidential election after supporters of their favored candidate, outgoing President Donald Trump, stormed the U.S. Capitol Wednesday.

Blackburn and Hagerty, joined by most of the state’s Republican House delegation, have spent the weeks since the November election sowing misinformation and backing Trump’s effort to reverse the outcome. Both senators were planning to join House members in objecting to congressional certification of results from swing states Trump lost but in quick succession Wednesday reversed course. Hagerty, a Trump fundraiser and ally sworn in earlier this week to his first term in the Senate, made one of his first votes a repudiation of a longtime promise to back Trump’s unfounded claims of fraud.