Unseen footage of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack left senators in both parties stunned and shaken on the second day of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
“It was riveting,” Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said after senators left the chamber for a dinner break after an hourslong presentation from House Democratic impeachment managers.
The day’s trial included new footage from Capitol security cameras and police body cameras that showed the level of violence, force, and determination a throng of pro-Trump protesters used to break into the Capitol.
The brunt of the attack was born by the U.S. Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department, whose body camera footage was incorporated into the managers’ presentation. Officers were pepper-sprayed, hit with objects, and crushed in doorways. They also used their bodies to block the throng from attacking lawmakers as police evacuated them from the House and Senate chambers.
“Graphic,” Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, said.
One camera caught Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman running past Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican. Goodman has been cited for his heroic effort to divert the protesters away from the chamber and the senators. The camera caught him running down the second floor of the Capitol to head off the throng, possibly saving Romney from an encounter with the angry mob by directing him to turn around.
“It was obviously very troubling to see the great violence that our Capitol Police and others were subjected to,” Romney said after watching the presentation. “It tears at your heart and brings tears to your eyes. That was overwhelmingly distressing and emotional.”
Republicans were clearly moved by the footage and the efforts by the Democrats to pin the blame on Trump, who claimed the election was stolen from him and who urged supporters to fight to ensure Congress did not certify President Biden the winner as it was poised to do on Jan. 6.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican and vocal Trump opponent, said the presentation was convincing so far.
“Frankly, I don’t see how after the American public sees the whole story laid out here, not just in one snippet on this day and another on that, but this whole scenario that has been laid out before us, I just, I don’t see how Donald Trump could be reelected to the presidency,” Murkowski said. “I just don’t see that.”
The footage may not change the outcome of the trial, which is expected to wrap as early as next week. Convicting Trump would take a supermajority in the Senate, which means 17 Republican senators would have to join all Democrats.
So far, only a handful of Republicans appear open to convicting Trump. Other GOP lawmakers said it’s not likely they will vote to convict the president.
One pointed to the summer riots in many cities and Democrats’ refusal to condemn Black Lives Matter, antifa, and other protesters who were violent, burned buildings, and, in some cases, killed people.
“I think there’s more votes for acquittal after today than there was yesterday,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and Trump ally, said late in the day on Wednesday. “Because hypocrisy is pretty large for these people, standing up to rioters when they came to my house, Susan Collins’s house.”
He called the argument that Trump caused the riot “absurd” and that the Capitol security was insufficient.
“I just can’t believe that we could lose the Capitol like that,” Graham said. “I got mad.”
Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, said blaming Trump for the actions of the attackers “is a big leap” and that Trump’s protest was not inciting a riot.
Many of the protesters came to hear Trump speak that day and believe there were questions about the election results that deserve scrutiny, Lankford said.
“When people say they are passionate about what they believe, and they believe all the things they were saying, and they came to be able to support him in that,” Lankford said. “It’s a big jump to say that all the folks that were there were coming to actually participate in a riot.”
