A congressional hearing into the US Capitol attack by Donald Trump's supporters trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat presented testimony on Thursday showing that close allies - even his daughter - rejected his false claims of election fraud.
US Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards. Photo:
US Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards gave some of the most poignant testimony of the night with her opening remarks about her experience on and after the attack.
She was called "many names" after the 6 January riot, she began.
"I was called Nancy Pelosi's dog," she said. "I was called a traitor. I was called a hero".
She was none of these, she continued - but simply, "an American standing face-to-face with other Americans asking myself how we had gotten here".
Edwards was among the first police officers injured in the riot.
Since 6 January, her injuries have prevented her from returning to her previous duties as a member of the Capitol Police first responder unit, according to the committee.
Edwards described how she watched an approaching crowd of rioters grow larger and eventually "turned the tables" on law enforcement.
The officers were pushed backwards by the crowd, Edwards testified. She said that amid the melee, she slipped on the concrete stairs, hit her head and blacked out.
Edwards described insults hurled by rioters at her during the melee but said she was proud of fighting them off even after being injured.
"I was slipping in people's blood," Edwards said. "It was carnage. It was chaos."
"What I saw was just a war scene," Edwards added.
The panel members thanked her for her bravery on the day, and the chairman closed out the hearing with footage of rioters themselves discussing their reasons for arriving at the Capitol that day.
Warning: Video contains violence and disturbing language.
The House of Representatives select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault also showed graphic footage of thousands of rioters attacking police and smashing their way into the Capitol during the first of its six hearings intended to show that Trump tried to subvert the US Constitution and unlawfully hold onto power.
The hearing presented video of testimony or public statements from key Trump administration figures including his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, Vice President Mike Pence and his chief of staff, Attorney General William Barr and General Mark Milley.
It featured a clip of Trump's incendiary speech before the riot in which he repeated his false claims of election fraud and directed his supporters' anger at Pence, who was at the Capitol overseeing the congressional certification of Joe Biden's win.
Watch highlights:
"Aware of the rioters' chants, to 'Hang Mike Pence,' the president responded with this sentiment: 'Well, maybe our supporters have the right idea," said Representative Liz Cheney, one of the two Republicans on the nine-member panel and its vice chair.
Barr in video testimony called the election fraud claims "bullshit," an argument that convinced Trump's daughter.
"I respect Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he was saying," Ivanka Trump said in videotaped testimony.
Democratic US Representative Bennie Thompson, the committee's chairman, said Trump was at the center of a conspiracy to thwart American democracy.
"Jan. 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup, a brazen attempt, as one writer put it shortly after Jan. 6, to overthrow the government," Thompson said "... The violence was no accident. It was Trump's last stand."
US Representative Bennie Thompson, centre, chairman of the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, and committee members take their seats for a House Select Committee hearing to Investigate the 6 January attack on the US Capitol. Photo:
Since leaving office last year, Trump has kept up his false claims that his 2020 election loss was the result of widespread fraud, an assertion that has been rejected by multiple courts, state election officials and members of his own administration.
"We can't live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence, that there was fraud in the election," Barr, who resigned before Trump left office, said in the video.
Trump, publicly flirting with another White House run in 2024, issued a statement before the hearing calling the committee "political Thugs."
Kushner was shown on video dismissing threats by members of Trump's Cabinet to resign after the riot, saying he considered their concerns as "whining."
Ivanka Trump, daughter of former US President Donald Trump and senior advisor, appears on screen during a House Select Committee hearing to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol. Photo:
The hearing featured two in-person witnesses, Edwards, who sustained a traumatic brain injury in the attack, and Nick Quested, a filmmaker who captured footage of the far-right Proud Boys group, accused of planning the deadly attack.
Other Capitol Police officers who fought with rioters on Jan. 6 were present in the audience for the hearing including Officer Harry Dunn, who wore a T-shirt bearing the word "insurrection" and Officer Michael Fanone, who was beaten and electrocuted with a Taser during the attack. Some House Democrats who are not panel members also attended.
People gather to watch the hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol on June 09, 2022 in Washington, DC. Photo: TASOS KATOPODIS
A total of six hearings are expected this month as the Democratic-led committee attempts to reverse Republican efforts to downplay or deny the violence of the attack, with five months to go until the 8 Nov. midterm elections that will determine which party controls both the House and the Senate for the following two years.
The attack on Jan. 6, 2021. Photo: AFP/ Getty -Samuel Corum
The pro-Trump mob sought to prevent Congress from certifying Biden's victory, attacking police and causing millions of dollars in damage.
Four people died the day of the attack, one fatally shot by police and the others of natural causes. More than 100 police officers were injured, and one died the next day. Four officers later died by suicide.
The committee wants to make the case not just that the attack was planned with the cooperation of members of Trump's inner circle, but that there is an ongoing threat to US democracy.
Biden on Thursday described the attack as "a clear, flagrant violation of the Constitution," telling reporters: "I think these guys and women broke the law, tried to turn around the result of an election."
People wait in line for an opportunity to attend the hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack On the U.S. Capitol at the Cannon House Office Building on June 09, 2022 in Washington, DC. Photo: CHIP SOMODEVILLA
Partisan views of attack
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday underscored the partisan lens through which many Americans view the assault. It found that among Republicans about 55 percent believed the false claim that left-wing protesters led the attack and 58 percent believed most of the protesters were law-abiding.
Two Republican Georgia state election officials who Trump tried to pressure to "find" votes that would overturn his election defeat will testify to the hearings later this month, a source familiar with the matter said.
Some congressional Republicans criticized Trump in the first days after the attack, but since then almost all have shifted their tone.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy on Thursday called the committee a "smokescreen" for Democrats to push dramatic changes to voting laws.
"It is the most political and least legitimate committee in American history," McCarthy said.
- Reuters w/BBC