Donald Trump orchestrated Captiol riot, says probe committee at public hearing

A congressional inquiry committee probing the January Captiolriot case has accused former US president Donald Trump of “engineering” the siege in an "attempted coup" to remain in power.

The committee argued that Trump laid the groundwork for the insurrection through months of lies about fraud in the 2020 presidential election described by his own administration as the most secure ever.

In a prime-time presentation of its findings from a year-long probe— the first of six hearings expected this month—the special committee on Thursday said that the former president sought to overturn the result of the 2020 election won by Joe Biden by orchestrating the insurrection.

"President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack," the Republican vice chairwoman of the panel, Liz Cheney, said in her opening remarks at the first in a series of hotly anticipated summer hearings.

Minutes earlier, Democratic committee chief Bennie Thompson accused Trump of being "at the centre of this conspiracy."

Watch |Jan 6 Capitol riot hearing: Unseen videos of the attack televised

"January 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup -- a brazen attempt, as one rioter put it shortly after January 6 -- to overthrow the government. The violence was no accident," he said.

To drive home their point, the probe committee played a compilation of some of the most disturbing footage from the January 6 attack.

They included some never-before seen material, including birds-eye view footage from security cameras that showed the enormous pro-Trump mob as it started swarming the Capitol grounds, reports CNN.

The footage also showed how the crowd took cues directly from Trump, with one rioter reading a Trump tweet on a megaphone for the other rioters to hear. In that tweet, Trump criticised former vice president Mike Pence for announcing that he would not overturn the results of the 2020 election while presiding over the joint session of Congress to certify Joe Biden's win.

After that moment, the committee's montage showed a now-infamous clip of Trump supporters chanting, "Hang Mike Pence."

(With inputs from agencies)

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