Former US President Donald Trump orchestrated last year’s Capitol riot in an “attempted coup”, a congressional inquiry has heard as a prime-time hearing opened into the raid, the BBC reports.
Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the committee, said Mr Trump had “lit the flame of this attack”.
Bennie Thompson, a Democrat, said the riot endangered American democracy.
Trump supporters stormed Congress on 6 January 2021 as lawmakers met to certify Joe Biden’s election victory.
After almost a year of investigation, the Democratic-led US House of Representatives select committee opened on Thursday evening by showing clips from interviews it conducted with members of Mr Trump’s inner circle.
Footage was aired of testimony by former US Attorney General Bill Barr saying he had repeatedly told the former president that he had lost the election and his claims that it had been stolen were wrong.
“We can’t live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence, that there was fraud in the election,” said the former attorney general.
The hearing also featured a recording of testimony by Ivanka Trump, the ex-president’s daughter, saying she “accepted” Mr Barr’s rejection of her father’s conspiracy theory.
And there was an audible gasp in the committee room as Ms Cheney read an account that claimed Mr Trump, when told the rioters were chanting for Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged for refusing to block the election results, suggested that he “deserves it”.
