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Until that tweet, the White House staffer said, Melania Trump was not 100% sure she would be going to Biden's inauguration, or wouldn't be.

The outgoing first lady hasn't done anything of significance as the weeks of her tenure come to a close.

"She's part of this. She can be silent, but she's part of this," the source said.

"This" being the recent activities of the President, the denial of his loss, the complicity of inciting inflamed supporters with lies and conspiracy theories, and the abject abdication of an official role.

"It's not the first time she has learned what he was doing because he tweeted it before he told her,"

"I think she's digging in. I think she has channeled her husband's fury and is obviously not interested in playing the traditional role of a first lady who, in times of crisis, seeks to unite and soothe the country."

"There's never been any first lady as stubborn and defiant as Melania Trump,"

The only thing Trump has done, besides pack the White House, work on photo albums of her time as first lady and oversee photo shoots of a rug and decorative items, is make a convoluted statement about the events of last Wednesday, five days after they occurred.

Instead, she appeared to lift parts of old statements and speeches into this new one, and added in a paragraph painting herself as a victim of a former staff member's continued criticism. Trump's reclusive manner has, at times, churned up public curiosity about just how aligned she is with the President, particularly when he's being criticized. Her hand swats, steely eyed visage and frequent outbursts of independent opinion crafted a possible scenario for critics of her husband that perhaps she was not like him, or even, did not like him.

"She understands her husband and what he stands for, and it simply does not bother her," said Brower. "She is not a victim and she will not leave the White House apologizing for her husband's behavior."

As the President publicly railed against the election, fraudulently claiming it was rigged and clinging to the false hope of staying in the White House, his wife was packing up their things to move out, say multiple sources who have observed Trump's activities since late November.

The first lady is now more than halfway done with the job of shipping belongings either to Mar-a-Lago or to storage, having bit-by-bit overseen the moveout for weeks.

"They are the most patriotic people I've ever met," said Brower, whose first book was "The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House." "They have been going ahead with the move, but they had to do some of it undercover because they do not want to upset (President) Trump."

"(Melania Trump) is not sad to be leaving," said one White House official

"Pat Nixon is the most recent example I can think of of a first lady who compares at all to Melania Trump," said Brower, but perhaps only in circumstance, not action. "As Watergate raged on, Pat Nixon spent lots of time sequestered in her room alone in the Residence. Butlers brought her breakfast and often she would only drink the coffee. People around her grew concerned about her health because it was obvious that Watergate was taking a toll and she was losing weight," the author said.

"Usually the first lady of a one-term president comes to his side publicly. President Ford served less than a full term and Betty Ford actually stepped in to read his concession letter to Carter when he lost in 1976," Brower said.

On Wednesday, an announcement was made that Blair House, the historic official guest house of the White House where several Presidents (including Trump) have stayed overnight before their swearing-in, would welcome Biden to stay as well.

the first lady as being "checked out," that she "just wants to go home," and is "not sad to be leaving" Washington and the White House

One of the sources discussing the "thank you" notes with CNN said it is customary for first ladies -- and occasionally presidents as well -- to write cards or short letters of gratitude to members of household staff, especially the ones whom they get to know extremely well.

Trump's highest favorable rating was in May 2018 at 57% according to a CNN poll taken at the time, which came on the heels of the first state dinner and Trump's attendance at the Texas funeral of the late first lady Barbara Bush.

Melania Trump will be exiting the White House with the lowest favorability rating of her tenure as first lady,

At 47%, more people have an unfavorable view of the first lady now than at any point since CNN first asked about views of her in February 2016. The poll, conducted by SSRS for CNN, puts Trump's favorable rating at 42%, with 12% of those asked answering they are unsure of their feelings about the first lady.

The butlers, cooks, housekeepers, ushers and maintenance workers do not typically turn over with each administration and many have been working at the White House for a decade or more.

Events with her involving the White House Christmas decorations were not open to the press. CNN was also first to report Melania Trump has overseeing the packing and shipping of her belongings for the family's departure from the White House for the two months.

The first lady, who last month battled coronavirus, told the crowd of about 250 attendees, most of whom were wearing masks, that the media and Democrats are politicizing the pandemic.

"The Democrats, together with the media, have attempted to make Covid-19 the most politically charged, polarizing, and divisive topic of the last decade.

The numbers of coronavirus cases are surging across the nation, and medical experts, including those on the White House's own coronavirus task force -- Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci -- have warned of the dangers ahead for Americans as winter looms and there remains no comprehensive federal plan for prevention.

Instead of a smile-and-wave final White House chapter, the couple are busy trying to keep the President from saying too little or too much, throwing themselves on a grenade they aren't certain will detonate but not able to take the chance either way.

From her office in the West Wing, Ivanka Trump was fielding calls from Capitol Hill politicians who were literally hiding from a vicious and violent mob. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a ubiquitous presence with the President during golf outings and holiday jaunts to Mar-a-Lago, could not get in touch with Trump to beseech him to publicly call for a stop to the insurrection, a source familiar with the conversation told CNN. So Graham called Ivanka Trump, pleading for her to help talk to her dad.

Ivanka Trump was among those who pushed her father to make the Twitter video that ultimately got him banned in the wake of the riot,

It was again Ivanka Trump key among the aides who pushed the President to issue a subsequent video in the wake of his impeachment, again denouncing any future violence or plots to wreak havoc across the country. There were no words of "love" this time.

"They're trying to keep what little is left for them in terms of sellable currency as Trumps," said one source, who added the change from "before insurrection" to "after insurrection" has moved the needle on the state of the Trump empire from perilous to dire.

In December, Trump and Kushner closed on the purchase of a $30 million plot of land on exclusive Indian Creek Island just north of Miami, with plans, friends say, to build a private estate. Murmurs that Trump wants to challenge Florida's GOP Sen. Marco Rubio for his seat in 2022 are growing -- or at least they were before the insurrection.

"The idea that anyone will forget that her father incited these attacks is about zero," said one political operative who has worked in Republican politics. "If she wanted future voters to overlook just how devastating the end of this administration is, that's a big lift."

"The proof here about how worried (the family) is is how quiet they are," said another source, who notes the muzzled Twitter screeds and the dialed-back bravado, most notably of Ivanka Trump's brothers Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.

"Until there's real evidence that the Trump brand is diminished with the activist base and dominant MAGA wing of the party, and not merely among elected Republicans and establishment types, I think Ivanka would remain the clear front-runner against Marco Rubio," he said.

The Kushner-Trumps also have a cottage at Trump Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey, which was recently renovated to add more bedrooms. It's possible they could land there for some amount of time, but politically New Jersey is not Trump country, either.

The most fractured of the bonds is likely the tenuous friendship Trump previously had with her stepmother, Melania Trump. The two women are undoubtedly the most powerful and influential in the President's life, and prior to the White House years both were aware and respectful of one another's turf, according to sources familiar with the dynamic. However, Ivanka Trump's perceived incursions into first lady Melania Trump's lane have led to tension between the women that's so bad, one source told CNN, there is little desire by either to be in the same room.

In recent months, Ivanka Trump and Melania Trump have not, in fact, been publicly photographed together, with the exception of the presidential debate in September and the Republican National Convention in August

At Thanksgiving, Ivanka Trump and the adult siblings went to Camp David, while Trump ate dinner at the White House with Melania Trump, Barron Trump and her parents. Over the Christmas holiday, Ivanka Trump and Kushner did not visit Mar-a-Lago as they had in years past. Though Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have separate living space at Mar-a-Lago, where the outgoing first couple intends to live post-White House, one source said Melania Trump "hasn't exactly rolled out the welcome mat."

But if there were ever a time for the Trump family to get on with its bunker mentality and try for an image upgrade, it would be now -- or the hotels, real estate, branded retail and any future Trump-touched business entities could be irretrievably damaged. "I think this is one time the family has to acknowledge that their actions have had consequences," the source said.

"It is not news or surprising to me that critics and the media have chosen to ridicule me for speaking out on the this issue, and that's OK," the first lady said last year in opening remarks at the Family Online Safety Institute's conference in Washington. "I remain committed to this topic because it will provide a better world for our children, and I hope that like I do, you will consider using their negative words as motivation to do all you can to bring awareness and understanding about responsible online behavior."

“I implore people to stop the violence, never make assumptions based on the color of a person’s skin or use differing political ideologies as a basis for aggression and viciousness,” Mrs. Trump also said in the statement. “We must listen to one another, focus on what unites us, and rise above what divides us.”

“I implore people to stop the violence, never make assumptions based on the color of a person’s skin or use differing political ideologies as a basis for aggression and viciousness,” she added. ” “We must listen to one another, focus on what unites us, and rise above what divides us.”

Trump demands continuous updates on the state of the race.

"It's really a contest to see whether or not we can all stand it, right?" Trump said at his frostbit event in Michigan

Increasingly, Trump's efforts on the trail amount to willing into existence the reality he'd rather be facing than the one he actually is. For him, coronavirus is a media exaggeration designed to prevent his campaign from hosting massive crowds. He insists the numbers for his rallies are bigger than ever, despite the pandemic.

Trump has not divulged to many what he might do should he lose. The delicate matter is not discussed widely among his team and has not been raised often with the President, who believes adamantly he will win.

Not one for introspection, but deeply prone to insecurity about potential failure, Trump has offered only fleeting glimpses of turmoil about potentially falling short.

"How the hell can we be tied?" Trump has asked about states where he and Biden are running neck-to-neck

He has joked he might drive an 18-wheeler into the distance, escaping the political life he chose for himself five years ago.

he has mused about fleeing overseas to escape humiliation

"I shouldn't even be here. They said I have Georgia made," Trump said later Sunday, standing beneath two fluttering American flags in a state that's voted Republican in the last six presidential elections. "But I said, I promised -- we have to be here. They said, 'Sir, you don't have to come to Georgia. It's won.' "

While he has suggested mass firings in his Cabinet should he win, he has not made his intentions explicitly known -- though by his final, muggy rally on a Miami area tarmac on Sunday night, he seemed ready to offer a hint.

If Trump does fail to win a second term -- the first president to do so in almost 30 years -- few believe he would fade into the background like his predecessors, who mostly stepped away from public life.

Trump will almost certainly continue tweeting.

After all, it is the rally where Trump has seemed most himself, even after four years of being president and ample time to adjust to a more presidential way of behaving

Ten hours and three rallies later, Trump boasted he could draw bigger crowds than his rivals, who have enlisted musical acts in the final stretch

He sounded dour and spoke for only about 20 minutes on Friday in Minnesota when rally was limited by the state's coronavirus restrictions.

Because of the pandemic, they are smaller now than they were in 2016, a fact Trump has refused to admit even as it remains patently obvious to any casual observer. Often, aides throw out numbers with little rooting in reality.

Sometimes he adds a new insult of his rivals; this weekend's addition was claiming his Democratic rival Joe Biden's signature aviator sunglasses were too small for his face and that his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, has been mispronouncing her own name.

He has not gone in for retail politics, partly because any unscheduled appearance at a restaurant or takeaway would place him squarely in the optics of coronavirus. When he stopped for pizzas in Pennsylvania in August, he seemed somewhat taken aback by the plexiglass barriers between himself and the cashier. Trump rarely, if ever, encounters voters who do not support him.

A lover of routine, Trump has spent only a handful of nights away from the White House, preferring to fly back even from late-night rallies.

On Thursday, after returning to the White House in the dark after a two-day Western swing, Trump was tweeting at 3 a.m. about the prospect of an election decided by the Supreme Court.

It isn't clear how much of his wife or teenage son he has seen lately; first lady Melania Trump has recently embarked for the first time on the campaign trail herself. All three had coronavirus last month; Trump has taken to touting his 14-year-old son Barron's infection as evidence of the mild effect on young people, suggesting he had it for either two minutes, 14 minutes or 15 minutes.

Along the way he has found some new interlocutors, including the rapper Lil Wayne, who had been in touch with the White House about Trump's plan for bolstering Black communities and was invited to meet the President at his Doral golf club

While not particularly wistful, Trump does sometimes wax nostalgic about his only previous campaign. He has assembled many of the same aides, most decades his junior, to accompany him as he attempts to repeat his victory this year. He will hold his final campaign rally on Monday evening in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the same place he held his final event in 2016.

"As soon as that election's over, we're going in with our lawyers," Trump said in North Carolina on Sunday, stopping between his second and third rallies of the day to speak with reporters as the sun set behind him.

After inviting supporters to enter a chance to win tickets to an election night party at his hotel in downtown Washington, Trump scrapped a planned appearance there. He was put off, he said, by Mayor Murial Bowser's restrictions on large gatherings.

How Trump reacts to the information coming to him about percentages of early votes and turnout numbers is anyone's guess. But no officials have ruled out Trump declaring himself the winner even in the absence of formal vote counts or media projections.

“He disavowed us,” Mr. Johnson acknowledged, “but he explained why there is so much anger in America that I couldn’t have asked for a better approach from him.”

Like others in his world, Mr. Taylor does not know if Mr. Trump agrees with him on everything. In an interview, he suggested that it did not really matter, and that Mr. Trump was expressing the discomfort many white people felt about other races.

“He says what everyone thinks,” Mr. Conrad said of Mr. Trump. “He says what we’re all thinking. He’s bringing people together. We say, ‘Hey, that’s right; we can say this.’

But on the flatlands of social media, the border between Mr. Trump and white supremacists easily blurs. He has retweeted supportive messages from racist or nationalist Twitter accounts to his nine million followers. Last fall, he retweeted a graphic with fictitious crime statistics claiming that 81 percent of white homicide victims in 2015 were killed by blacks. (No such statistic was available for 2015 at the time; the actual figure for 2014 was 15 percent, according to the F.B.I.)

In January and February he retweeted messages from a user with the handle @WhiteGenocideTM, whose profile picture is of George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party. A couple of days later, in quick succession, he retweeted two more accounts featuring white nationalist or Nazi themes. Mr. Trump deleted one of the retweets, but white supremacists saw more than a twitch of the thumb. “Our Glorious Leader and ULTIMATE SAVIOR has gone full wink-wink-wink to his most aggressive supporters,” Mr. Anglin wrote on The Daily Stormer.

In fact, Mr. Trump’s Twitter presence is tightly interwoven with hordes of mostly anonymous accounts trafficking in racist and anti-Semitic attacks. When Little Bird, a social media data mining company, analyzed a week of Mr. Trump’s Twitter activity, it found that almost 30 percent of the accounts Mr. Trump retweeted in turn followed one or more of 50 popular self-identified white nationalist accounts.

After Mr. Trump attacked a profile of his wife, Melania, in GQ, the article’s author, the journalist Julia Ioffe, who is Jewish, was inundated with anti-Semitic abuse on social media, including a cartoon depicting Ms. Ioffe in a concentration camp.Asked whether he condemned the attacks, Mr. Trump told an interviewer: “I don’t have a message to the fans. A woman wrote an article that’s inaccurate.

That is the Trifecta. People with that background these days are, no matter their color or economic level, almost American aristocracy. Solid family, solid framework, solid mind, built to rise—a lot of working-class Americans, white or black, would thank their lucky stars to come from that background

Love, stability and talent for something—there are a million kinds of talent to have—will set you firmly into the future. The rest is effort and luck

Mrs. Obama had these too, working diligently and meeting a man with whom she could share an interesting life.

For those new to the North Korean brief, including those in the West Wing, it’s worth pointing out that the North Korean deal during the Clinton years was supposed to halt nuclearization. Then it turned out Pyongyang had a secret nuclear program.

Needless to say, Trump is very pleased with this state of affairs. “Kim Jong-un talked about denuclearization with the South Korean representatives, not just a freeze,” he tweeted. “Also, no missile testing by North Korea during this period of time. Great progress being made but sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached.”

In case we didn’t get the news, he continued: “I would not rule out direct talks with Kim Jong-un,” he said. “I just won’t. As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that’s his problem, not mine.” Some people thought he was joking: others were just plain confused. South Korean officials later pointed out that Trump had not talked to the North Koreans, but instead had talked to them. So foreign policy experts naturally assumed that Trump had confused the two Koreas.

It’s like a diplomatic version of the Art of the Deal, but with war and peace in place of luxury condominiums.

There was a time when an idealistic new president campaigned against the establishment, promised to talk to America’s adversaries, like the mullahs in Iran and the communists in Cuba. For years the Republicans ran the emotional gamut from disdain to disgust at his weak foreign policy. But that president’s name was Barack Obama, and we all know what the world thought of him. Now we have a president in the pocket of Vladimir Putin, who is also busting sanctions to help Kim Jong-un. So this summit is less a meeting of adversaries and more a get-together of subsidiaries. Nationalists of the World, unite! You have nothing to lose but your shame.

The longer spot begins with Bush touting that Covid vaccines will "soon be available to everyone," before Obama says that the vaccine means "hope" that it "will protect you and those you love from this dangerous and deadly disease."

According to CNN data, about 93.7 million vaccine doses have been administered in the United States, with the Food and Drug Administration issuing emergency use authorizations for three vaccines: The two-shot Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines and the single-dose Johnson & Johnson one.

"So, we urge you to get vaccinated when it is available to you," Obama says. "Roll up your sleeve and do you part," Bush says. "This is our shot," Clinton says.

"Now it is up to you," Carter concludes, as an image of the smiling former President holding his vaccine card closes the ad.

Clinton says he wants to "go back to work" and to "be able to move around." Obama says he misses visiting his mother-in-law and he wants to "hug her and see her on her birthday." And Bush says he is "really looking forward to going to Opening Day in Texas Rangers Stadium with the full stadium."

"The science is clear, these vaccines will protect you and those you love from this dangerous and deadly disease," Bush says. "So, we urge you to get vaccinated when it is available to you."

"That's the first step to ending the pandemic and moving our country forward," Obama says. "It's up to you."

"In this pandemic, we need every American to help so that all Americans can recover," said former Republican Gov. Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho and former Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, the co-Chairs of the COVID Collaborative. "These former Presidents and First Ladies have come together to show that each of us, regardless of political party, has a stake in beating this virus."

The Ad Council said the ads would appear nationwide during time and space donated to them by a range of television and digital platforms. They will begin airing this week.

And Carter said he and Rosalynn got the vaccine so they could "get back to church, see our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and eventually be active in our community again.""I encourage everyone to get a vaccine when it's their turn," he added.

The Biden administration has made getting Americans vaccinated central to both its fight against the coronavirus and its messaging around the success of the President's first 100 days in office. Biden made a pledge early in his administration to get 100 million shots in arms within his first 100 days, a goal he appears likely to achieve.

Trump's departure amounts to a blissful lifting of a four-year pall on American life and the end to a tortured stretch of misconduct and indignities

At least some of the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump in November are sad to see him go. Scores of them attempted an insurrection at the US Capitol this month to prevent it from happening at all. The less violent view him as a transformative President whose arrival heralded an end to political correctness and whose exit marks a return to special treatment for immigrants, gays and minorities.

In his final days, Trump has been surrounded by a shrinking circle of associates, many of them decades younger. Old friends who used to speak with him regularly said they can no longer reach him

The violent mob attack on the citadel of American democracy capped a presidency built upon disregard for democratic norms, antagonizing government institutions and willful ignorance of the far right's violent and racist tendencies.

There is no evidence the President has reckoned with the consequences of his actions; the opposite appears to be true. He came to regret a concession video he had recorded at the urging of his family and advisers, who told him he was seriously close to being removed from office.

Freshly impeached for a second time, this time with support from a few Republicans, Trump ends his term with the lowest approval rating of his tenure. Republicans remain divided on whether he represents the future of their party.

One thing Trump's presidency undoubtedly accomplished: revealing in stark fashion the racist, hate-filled, violent undercurrents of American society that many had chosen previously to ignore. It became impossible to overlook as Trump's presidency concluded with violent riots of White nationalists and neo-Nazis at the Capitol.

Ten Republicans voted for his impeachment in the most bipartisan impeachment vote in history.

They appeared to reconcile, but other senior Republicans began breaking with the President, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican.

He even had a falling-out with his vice president, Mike Pence, whose characteristic fealty was severed after he heard nothing from Trump while mobs appeared to be hunting him during the insurrection attempt

Instead of attending his successor's inauguration, Trump is departing the White House early to attend a military-style sendoff at Joint Base Andrews. He balked at the idea of leaving Washington an ex-president and did not particularly relish the thought of requesting use of the presidential aircraft from Biden

Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Trump's ties to Russia proved an immense distraction that preoccupied both the President and his White House. It resulted in the convictions of several Trump associates, many of whom he pardoned.

Trump enters his post-presidency facing swirling legal matters and with the fate of his business empire in doubt.

Without some of the protections afforded him by the presidency, Trump will become vulnerable to multiple investigations looking into possible fraud in his financial business dealings as a private citizen.

Even as he exits the White House, there is little question that Trump's shadow will cloud the capital for the foreseeable future. The matter of his impeachment still lingers in the Senate, which will begin a trial after Biden is sworn in. And Trump's influence on his party's direction going forward will amount to a reckoning for conservatives, who now must decide whether theirs is the party of a president who incited an insurrection on his way out of office.

Trump has left the Republican Party in civil war.

Trump has amassed hundreds of millions of dollars in a leadership PAC formed after the election that he will be able to use for future political activity, including boosting candidates. There are few restrictions on how the money can be used.

But since then, officials have cast doubt on his intentions, suggesting instead he was more interested in keeping the potential 2024 GOP field in limbo rather than seriously contemplating another run.

The results of Trump's presidency are not particularly mixed. While there have been some achievements -- a reshaped Supreme Court, a dismantled regulatory state and the brokering of diplomatic achievements in the Middle East -- Trump's overarching legacy is one of division and rancor capped by the catastrophic events of January 6, when he had 14 days left in his term.

"This is more work than in my previous life," he told Reuters 100 days into the job. "I thought it would be easier."

Trump had spent his previous decades cultivating a public profile as a savvy businessman and larger-than-life New York City mogul, despite a succession of bankruptcies and collapses. His second act as a reality television star with a penchant for race-baiting conspiracies (such as questioning President Barack Obama's birthplace) led into his third act as president, and along with it an eye toward artifice and spectacle.

Trump is the first president in 150 years to stage such a boycott. While Pence will attend Biden's swearing-in, other members of Trump's family, including wife Melania and daughter Ivanka, will be absent.

Instead of rising to the difficulties, Trump amended the job to fit his own liking. He mostly skipped reading lengthy intelligence documents, preferring in-person briefings that on some occasions left out important information about which Trump would later claim ignorance.

Most tragically, Trump showed little interest in leading the nation through the coronavirus pandemic, self-styling himself a "wartime leader" for a few days before reverting to downplaying the crisis and eventually pretending it did not exist

. A fateful invitation to attend Bastille Day in Paris in 2017 turned Trump on to the thrills of a military parade, which he unsuccessfully lobbied for in Washington for another three years.

An apparently leaked copy of the publication's February issue cover, shot in front of a pink and green background, began circulating online Sunday. The photo instantly attracted ire on social media for appearing poorly lit and styled, while others suggested it was "disrespectful" to the Vice President-elect.

Vogue "loved the images Tyler Mitchell shot and felt the more informal image captured Vice President-elect Harris's authentic, approachable nature -- which we feel is one of the hallmarks of the Biden/Harris administration.

Explaining the influences behind the cover shoot, Vogue said that the apple green and salmon pink background had been inspired by the colors of Howard University's Alpha Kappa Alpha, the "first historically African American sorority."

The article also said that the Vice President-elect's styling choices "were her own," and that the image "reflects Harris at her casual best."

Playwright and lawyer Wajahat Ali described it as a "mess up," adding that Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour "must really not have Black friends and colleagues."

"Folks are arguing over the photo chosen for VP Harris's Vogue cover, but here's what's important: she looks great, she's being honored, and the cover is driving Trump and Melania nuts,"

The debate comes just over a week before Harris is inaugurated as the first female and first Black and South Asian Vice President. In an accompanying in-depth profile, published online by Vogue on Sunday, Harris recalls the moment the election was called and her subsequent victory speech. She also speaks about climate change and protesting for racial justice.

Elsewhere in the interview, she reiterated that Covid-19 will be the Biden-Harris administration's main priority during its first 100 days.

Numerous videos shared online showed how the noise of protesters could be heard from inside the Senate and House chambers. In an hours-long siege, the rioters tore through the building, breaking windows, attacking police and ransacking lawmakers' offices. Lawmakers, staffers, reporters and other Capitol building workers were forced into hiding while heavily armed police and federal agents rallied a response.

D.C. officials said one woman was shot by a Capitol Police officer amid the chaos. Three others died after separate medical emergencies,

Police also responded to reports of suspicious packages discovered on Capitol grounds and in other areas of the city. Two pipe bombs left at the Republican National Committee headquarters and the Democratic National Committee headquarters were discovered by police and safely detonated, police said.

Yet, there were few arrests in relation to the scope of the unrest as of Wednesday night, despite clear evidence on video of hundreds of rioters gaining access to the Capitol and damaging government property.

At least four people were arrested for carrying a pistol without a license and having a large capacity ammunition feeding device, including one instance of possessing a firearm on Capitol grounds.

D.C. police will be releasing information later Thursday asking the public's help identifying individuals who breached the Capitol so that they "can be held accountable," he said.

Videos taken of the chaos appeared to show, at best, an unprepared police force easily overrun by rioters or, at worst, one that appeared to acquiesce to the mob. Unverified videos shared on social media showed a police officer taking selfies with some rioters who entered the Capitol, and another appeared to show officers moving barricades to allow a large crowd of people to approach the building.

According to D.C. law, Metropolitan Police can only make arrests on Capitol grounds with the consent or at the request of Capitol Police.

Lawmakers already promised a full investigation into the actions by Capitol Police Wednesday.

The FBI has set up a tip line website for information tied to the riots. The agency said it's seeking information to "assist in identifying individuals who are actively instigating violence in Washington, D.C."

Stephanie Grisham, the chief of staff for first lady Melania Trump, submitted her resignation effective immediately. As did White House social secretary Anna Cristina Niceta and White House press aide Sarah Matthews.Deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger reportedly also resigned Wednesday, according to Bloomberg News.

Social media posts from the event also showed live performances by Teri Nunn, the lead singer of the 1970s and ’80s new-wave band Berlin, famous for the song “Take My Breath Away,” and two members of the Beach Boys, who now perform without the founding members Al Jardine and Brian Wilson.

Mr. Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, unexpectedly returned to the White House hours before the party, which he had originally planned to attend. It was unclear why Mr. Trump flew back to Washington, where he has not appeared in public since his return.

“Now they want to give people ravaged by the China Virus $600, rather than the $2000 which they so desperately need,” he wrote. “Not fair, or smart!”