On Wednesday, House impeachment administrators used graphic and audio clips – some of which they said were not publicly released – to recreate the moments when a pro-Trump crowd stormed the Capitol on January 6.
Delegate Stacey Plaskett, a Democrat who represents the U.S. Virgin Islands, presented the distressing images and sound by illustrating the danger that former Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress faced in confirming President Joe Biden’s election victory.
It happened during a day when the administrators of the House’s impeachment presented their case that ex-President Donald Trump incited an insurrection against the government, in front of lawmakers who lived through the attack and will decide whether to condemn the ex-president for causing it .
“President Trump put a target on their back, and his mob went to the Capitol to hunt them down,” said Plaskett at the end of his presentation.
The video shows the opening moments when Trump supporters start breaking through the barricades and approaching the Capitol, while scattered police officers punch but fail to contain them. The police can be heard on radio records not previously released, calling for reinforcements amid “various police injuries”.
One official describes the protesters “throwing metal poles at us”. Another says, “They are starting to launch explosives” or “firework supplies”.
“This is now effectively a riot,” said an official at around 1:49 pm ET, on Jan. 6.
When rioters arrive at the Capitol, they knock on windows and kick doors. A man breaks a window with a riot shield and the crowd begins to enter through the opening. A rioter carries a Confederate flag on the Capitol.
In this video image, a security video shows senators leaving the Senate floor while protesters violate the Capitol, while House impeachment manager Del. Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands speaks during the former president’s second impeachment trial Donald Trump in the Senate at the US Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, February 10, 2021.
Senate Television via AP
In a security footage of the same event inside the building that Plaskett said was never seen, protesters pass through a door and windows while a lone policeman responds. One member of the mob wears tactical armor and the other a baseball bat.
After the Senate calls a recess around 2:13 pm ET, Pence and the senators begin to leave the House. Security footage shows former Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, who later drove protesters out of the Senate chamber, passing GOP Senator Mitt Romney of Utah in a corridor and urging him to run in the opposite direction of the crowd.
More security footage shows Pence and his family running down a staircase as they leave the Senate chamber.
Even more videos show protesters looking for Mayor Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Asking, “Where are you, Nancy? We’re looking for you.” While hiding, a member of Pelosi’s team whispers on the phone, “They’re knocking on doors and trying to find you.”
A subsequent presentation by Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., Recreated how close the crowd came to reaching members of the Chamber. Security footage showed lawmakers fleeing the City Hall and walking down the halls in gas masks.
He presented a video of the police shooting Ashli Babbitt, the woman who died when a group of protesters tried to break down doors near the town hall.
Swalwell also showed the video of the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., turning and fighting the other way after moving in the direction of the crowd.
“You were just 58 steps from where the crowd was piling up,” Swalwell told the senators.
Some senators, including Romney, watched closely as impeachment administrators recreated the danger that lawmakers faced, according to reporters on Capitol Hill. Masks they used to slow the spread of coronavirus armored reactions.
Senators watched dozens of scary videos, the last showing the crowd smashing a policeman in a doorway while he shouted. Swalwell ended his presentation with the graphic clip.
Members of the House who are suing the Trump case face the challenge of trying to persuade Republican senators to vote to condemn the former president. Seventeen Republican senators would need to join all 50 Democrats to do so.
On Tuesday, only six Republicans voted to say the trial should go ahead. The former president’s legal team argued that Trump should not face an impeachment trial after leaving office.
Both sides have 16 hours and even two days to present their cases. Trump’s lawyers must argue that months of commentary that the House says incited the crowd during the course of the election and after it is constitutionally protected speech.
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