WASHINGTON (AP) — A House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has firmly laid blame on former President Donald Trump.
In Thursday’s prime-time hearing, lawmakers said the siege was no accident but an “attempted coup” and a direct result of the defeated president’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democrat from Mississippi, said the attack put America’s “constitutional democracy at risk.”
The hearing showed new video and other evidence from the deadly Capitol assault.
The panel also detailed the chilling backstory as Trump tried to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The first public hearing by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection included raw testimony from Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards.
She told lawmakers what she experienced was “carnage” and “chaos” as she fought the mob.
Edwards described how the rioters hit her with a bike rack, causing her to fall and black out.
Other members of the Capitol Police force were in the audience Thursday for her testimony.
There were moments in her testimony that brought one of them to tears.
The police officers had fought for hours as a violent mob of pro-Trump rioters, some armed with pipes, bats and bear spray, charged into the Capitol.
