The US Capitol riots were an "attempted coup" by Donald Trump according to the explosive findings of the investigating House select committee.
The findings were revealed in the first televised hearing of the committee investigating the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol, in which committee’s members accused the former president of encouraging the violence.
Five people died in the riot, including a Capitol police officer, with the threat of violence explicit in much of the build up.
Committee chairman Bennie Thompson emphasised in his opening statement that he held Trump personally responsible for the attack.
He accused the then-president of "trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power".
"Donald Trump was at the centre of this conspiracy," he added.
With a never-before-seen 12-minute video of the deadly violence and testimony from Trump’s most inner circle, the House committee said the former president’s repeated lies about election fraud and his public effort to stop Joe Biden ’s victory led to the attack and imperilled US democracy.
Footage included the chilling image of a noose strung up outside the Capitol building.
Caroline Edwards, a Capitol police officer who sustained a brain injury during the attack, described to the committee the brutal violence of that day comparing it to a “war scene”.
She said: “I can remember my breath catching in my throat because what I saw was a war scene”.
Ms Edwards continued: “Officers on the ground. They were bleeding, on the ground, throwing up”.
“I was slipping in people’s blood,” she added. “I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage. It was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw.”
In a tweet from Donald Trump highlighted by committee vice-chair and Republican representative Liz Cheney, he emphasised the discredited view that the election was stolen while urging his supporters to come to DC on January 6 saying: "Be there, will be wild".
Ms Cheney described the tweet as a "pivotal moment" in the run up to the riot and led to far-right paramilitary groups such as the Proud Boys to start seriously planning to take part.
She also played key clips of the Trump's own team telling him the election fraud allegations were baseless.
In one key clip, Bill Barr - the president's attorney general - recounted how he used a dismissive expletive to tell the president that his claims of widespread election fraud were baseless.
Trump's own daughter was heard in video testimony saying she had no reason to doubt then-Attorney General Bill Barr.
More footage of the interviews is expected in subsequent hearings.
The hearings are expected to be held over the next two weeks.
They will be broadcast across all US main networks apart from Fox News which will be broadcasting counter coverage led by Tucker Carlson, aiming to undermine evidence brought up in the hearings.
