Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer came dangerously close to the angry mob of pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol, Democratic impeachment prosecutors said on Wednesday while playing a newly revealed security video.
“They came within just yards of rioters, and had to turn around,” representative Eric Swalwell of California said.
The video, drawn from security footage, shows the majority leader’s security detail, including one man holding a rifle, escorting him through a hallway, before hustling him back behind a glass doors. A pair of his security team barricades themselves against the doors.
The day’s trial in the Senate was filled with new clips from 6 January, which still managed to shock even though the attack was filmed from all angles and posted in real-time on social media by many.
In another exhibit from House impeachment managers, a man can be heard calling out to find Nancy Pelosi, who officials believe some of the rioters wanted to kill.
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"Where are you, Nancy?" the cameraman calls out, in a tone evoking the villain from a horror movie. "Oh Nancy, we're looking for you!"
Another man responds, “She’s in jail!”
Mr Schumer wasn’t the only one who had a close call. Impeachment manager Stacey Plaskett, a Democrat representing the US Virgin Islands, showed footage which revealed that Mike Pence had a near-miss with the mob, who wanted to “execute” him for refusing to overturn the election.
“The mob was looking for vice president Pence because of his patriotism,” she said. “Because the vice president had refused to do what the president demanded, and overturn the election results.”
US Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, who heroically redirected a group of attackers heading for the Senate, was also shown in Wednesday’s videos to have directed senator Mitt Romney to safety.
The parade of evidence of the day’s brutality apparently hasn’t shaken the ex-president.
His adviser Jason Miller told Fox News, “The president was in a great mood,” after a phone call between the two on Wednesday.
The president’s lawyers, meanwhile, were outraged about the deluge of sensational footage, and called it a “hoax.”
"It's very easy to stand up and show spliced and manufactured films. Literally, the Democrats, the House managers, hired a large movie company and a large law firm to put together this thing,” attorney David Schoen told Fox News. "It's a matter of tricking the American people, to play as if the rioting was going on in real-time with the speech. What's the purpose of that? Why do we want to trick the American people? It's sending a very dangerous and wrong message, and it's a hoax I'm sorry to say.”
