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A graphic video was shown to members of the Senate at the start of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on Tuesday, containing the violence and obscenities shouted by the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6. The Democratic House impeachment managers presented the footage as a way of walking through the events of Jan. 6.
The video showed Capitol police being overrun by the mob, people using flag staffs to break the building’s windows, a police officer screaming as he was attacked, and the gunshot that killed Ashli Babbitt, one of five who died during during the violence. It was also interspersed with clips from the speech Trump was delivering at the same time on the Ellipse outside the White House, including one in which he said, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
The video also contained footage of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell speaking on the chamber floor as the mob breached the Capitol. It also displays a tweet from Trump calling into question the intentions of then-Vice President Mike Pence followed by videos of Trump supporters shouting “Hang Pence.” Trump was also shown in a clip from later in the day, when he told the insurrectionists to “go home, we love you.”
Editorial credit: lev radin / Shutterstock.com
