A tweet from former President Donald Trump is shown during the House Select Committee hearing.
The House Select Committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and the events leading up to it, convened its first public meeting on Thursday to reveal their conclusions after 11 months of investigation.
During the hearing, the committee showed never-before-seen footage of the riot, where protesters could be seen slamming windows and crashing over barricades.
According to CNN, the “pre-produced, previously unseen video” showed the series of attacks by a mob since the morning of January 6, 2021, leading up to the breach of the Capitol.
CBS News sherd the footage on its official Twitter handle. In the clip, we can see the officers being pushed by a mob, with one of them shouting, “I need support.”
We can also hear an officer saying, “We need to close the doors of the Capitol.”
Thursday's hearing lasted just under two hours and the nine-member probe panel also heard testimony from a Capitol Police officer, Caroline Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury from the violence, reported CNBC.
The police officer said that the Capitol complex was a warzone and it was the carnage that day and other officers were covered in blood. Caroline also added that she was slipping on other people's blood, according to CNBC.
The probe panel headed by Bennie Thompson held that former US President Trump was at the centre of a coordinated effort to reverse President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory and provoked the violence at the Capitol on January 6 last year.
“President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” CNBC quoted Cheney as saying.
The committee, comprising seven Democrats and two Republicans showed the evidence, including the video footage and testimony, it had gathered in its yearlong investigation. The House panel is probing the links between Trump's election lies, his attempt to overturn Joe Biden's election win, and the violence on January 6, 2021, when a violent mob stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the counting of electoral votes.
A group of Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol after the former US President claimed that the presidential election results from several states were fraudulent. More than 725 individuals have been arrested for criminal offences linked to the riot.