House impeachment managers used graphic video and audio clips – some of which they believe were not publicly released – to recreate the moments when a pro-Trump gang stormed into the Capitol on January 6.
Representative Stacey Plaskett, a Democrat representing the U.S. Virgin Islands, presented the poignant images and sound as she illustrated the danger former Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress faced as they confirmed President Joe Biden’s election victory.
It came a day when House impeachment managers presented their case that former President Donald Trump provoked an uprising against the government, in front of lawmakers who have both experienced the attack and will decide whether to condemn the former president for causing it .
“President Trump laid a target on their back and his mob entered the Capitol to track them down,” Plaskett said closing her presentation.
Video shows the first moments when Trump supporters begin to break through barricades and approach the Capitol, with a few scattered police officers throwing punches but not holding them back. Police can be heard on previously unreleased radiologs calling for reinforcements amid “multiple injuries from police.”
An officer describes rioters “throwing metal poles at us”. Another says, “They are starting to throw explosives” or “fireworks material”.
“This is basically a riot now,” said an officer at approximately 1:49 p.m. ET on Jan. 6.
When rioters reach the Capitol, they bang on windows and kick doors. A man breaks a window with a riot shield and the crowd begins to pour in through the opening. A rioter carries a Confederate flag into the Capitol.
In this video, a security video shows senators exiting the Senate floor as rioters invade the Capitol, such as House impeachment manager Del. Stacey Plaskett, D-Virgin Islands, speaking during the second impeachment trial against former President Donald Trump in the Washington Capitol, Wednesday February 10, 2021.
Senate Television via AP
In security footage of the same event from the building Plaskett said had never been seen, rioters stream through a door and windows as a lone officer responds. One member of the crowd wears tactical body armor and another has a baseball bat.
After the Senate takes a break at 2:13 p.m. ET, Pence and senators begin to leave the room. Security footage shows former Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, who later led rioters away from the Senate Chamber, GOP Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah passed in a hallway and urged him to run in the opposite direction of the crowd.
More security footage shows Pence and his family running down a flight of stairs while evacuating from the Senate Chamber.
Another video shows rioters looking for house speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Asking, “Where are you, Nancy? We’re looking for you.” A Pelosi employee in hiding whispers into a phone, “They’re banging on the doors, trying to find her.”
Another presentation by Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., Showed how close the crowd was to members of the House. Security footage showed lawmakers fleeing the House room and walking through corridors wearing gas masks.
He presented video of the police shooting Ashli Babbitt, the woman who died when a group of rioters tried to break through doors near the House’s room.
Swalwell also showed a video of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., who turned and scrambled the other way after heading towards the crowd.
“You were only 58 paces from where the crowd gathered,” Swalwell told senators.
Some senators, including Romney, watched intently as the impeachment managers mimicked the danger facing lawmakers, according to reporters in the Capitol. Masks they wore to slow the spread of the coronavirus-shielded reactions.
The senators watched dozens of haunting videos, the latest of which showed the crowd crushing a police officer into a doorway as he screamed. Swalwell ended his presentation with the graphic clip.
The members of the House prosecuting the case against Trump face the challenge of convincing Republican senators to vote to condemn the former president. Seventeen GOP senators would need to join all 50 Democrats to do this.
On Tuesday, only six Republicans voted to say the process should go ahead at all. The former president’s legal team argued that Trump should not face impeachment lawsuits after his departure.
Both parties are given 16 hours over a maximum of two days to complete their cases. Trump’s attorneys are expected to argue that months-long comments that the House said sparked the crowd in the course of the election and afterward are constitutionally protected speech.
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