PANEL REVEALS NEW CAPITOL MOB SCENES
The House select committee investigating last year’s Capitol riot broadcast on Thursday a dramatic montage of video clips of the uprising, beaming to a national TV audience the jarring scenes from 17 months ago.
The opening hour of the panel’s first prime-time hearing concluded with the 11-minute video, which included clips played at last year’s Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump for allegedly inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
Other footage appeared to be shown for the first time.
The apparently new material featured videos of police officers on the front lines of clashes, including an officer’s exclamation at the size of a thousandsstrong mob.
“We can’t hold this. We’re going to get too many people. Look at this f--king vantage point. We’re f--ked,” a cop says to a colleague.
In another apparently new clip, staff are seen fleeing from the office of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
The most violent images included footage of rioters chanting “heave-ho” as they clash with police at an entrance to the west side of the Capitol, most famously used by presidents on their inauguration day, as well as scenes of rioters rushing through the basement level of the building toward officers.
Tale of the videotape
Some footage was previously played at congressional proceedings, including the moment the first windows of the Capitol were smashed by a rioter and surveillance camera video of the mob then breaching the building through those windows.
Networks carrying Thursday’s hearing live included CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox Business Network, offering the Democratic-led committee an opportunity to revive public interest in the events of that day.
The hearing’s second hour featured testimony from documentary filmmaker Nick Quested, who had trailed members of the far-right Proud Boys group as they stormed the building, and from Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who suffered a brain injury after being knocked unconscious when her head hit a flight of steps during a struggle.
Despite her injury, Edwards said she returned to the police line to help fight back the crowd during “hours of hand-to-hand combat.”
“What I saw was just a war scene. It was something like I’d seen out of the movies. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were officers on the ground, you know, they were bleeding, they were throwing up,” Edwards said.
Earlier Thursday in Los Angeles, President Biden told reporters that he believed the hearing would show a “flagrant violation of the Constitution.”
“A lot of Americans are going to be seeing for the first time some of the detail that occurred,” Biden said.
Republican leaders preemptively slammed the House committee as a “sham,” pointing out that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had rejected a slate of GOP members nominated by McCarthy for the panel and had allowed only two Republican members — Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) — both of whom had voted to impeach Trump.
“This is a political show trial. This is something from a third world country,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), a close Trump ally, said on a Republican press call Tuesday.
Thursday’s public hearing was the first of six scheduled to take place over the coming weeks. The second and third hearings have been set for Monday and Wednesday, both at 10 a.m.