By Aaron Miller-
Vice president Mike Pence and Senator Mitt Romney, were was shown running for his life after Proud Boys and other rioters smashed their way into the US Capitol in spectacularly unseen video footage played at Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
The footage, taken from the Capitol security footage and containing no sound, showed the Utah senator, running down a corridor, told to flee by Capitol Hill police officer Eugene Goodman.
Mr Romney had previously been walking, but after being spoken to by the officer, he was seen to turn and run the other way. Moments earlier, scores of protesters, at least one of them carrying a baseball bat and wearing full tactical gear, were seen smashing their way into the building.
The footage emerged as the incredible impeachment trial revealed a detailed timeline that fuelled the violence that led to an insurrection of capitol Hill. Detailed plans by known groups tracked online revealed calculated plans to storm congress and seek harvoc. The insurrectionists had ear pieces, evidence of an organised plan.
Senators prosecuting the case said Trump was aware of what he was doing, and knew the violent tendencies of the mob he had been inciting for months.
Features of the deadly occasions showed rioters asking for Nancy Pelosi, with speakers saying the mon wanted to kill Vice president Mike Pence.
Previously unseen harrowing security footage of Donald Trump’s supporters breaking into the Capitol, including previously unseen clip of Vice President Mike Pence being escorted to safety as the mob swarmed was shown to the trial.
The mob was shown smashing windows and doors and searching menacingly for the vice president and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as overwhelmed police begged on their radios for help.
Mike Pence, who had been presiding over a session to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump, is shown being rushed to safety, where he sheltered in an office with his family just 100ft from the rioters.
Delegate Stacey E Plaskett of the US Virgin Islands and Congressman Eric Swalwell of California walked through the attack on the US Capitol, minute by minute.
Using previously unreleased audio from police radios and video from Capitol security cameras, they analysed the violence as it unfolded, with the rioter’s progress illustrated on a map of the US Capitol.
The House impeachment managers noted earlier in the day how close the rioters came to reaching US elected officials. The presentation drove that point home in painstaking detail.
Pelosi was rushed out of the capital out of fear that her safety was in grave danger.
Prosecutors for the Democratic party said if they had found Nancy Pelosi, they would have killed her, they would have killed anyone they got their hands on.
Lead manager Jamie Raskin attacked Trump, saying he was no “innocent bystander” on 6 January, he said, he was the “inciter-in-chief”. Over many months, Trump had “praised, encouraged and cultivated violence.”
The Democratic congressman said Trump’s “remember this day forever” tweet while the Capitol was being ransacked were not words of sadness, but of celebration. Accusing the former president of watching the chaos unfold on TV “like a reality show”, he went on to say: “This is a day that will live in disgrace in American history, unless you ask Donald Trump.”
Raskin said such violence will re-occur if the Senate doesn’t convict Trump and prohibit him from holding office in the future,
Lead impeachment manager, James Raskin, once again displayed Trump’s post-riot message that “these are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots”.
Impeachment manger David Cicilline, also attacked Donald Trump’s, accusing inciting a mob to attack congress. He said this was a breathtaking dereliction of his duty to fulfil his oath”
That a commander in chief can incite a bloody insurrection. Donald Trump abdicated his duty, he said.