Video of Insurrectionists Quoting Trump While Storming the Capitol Certainly Seems Like Grounds for a Conviction

As Senators hear evidence in the Trump impeachment trial around whether or not then-President Donald Trump incited treasonous violence on January 6, 2021, when thousands, at Trump’s behest, gathered at a rally to protest a fair and legal election, some of that evidence includes video footage of themselves fleeing those very attackers, who can clearly be heard chanting “Stop the steal,” a phrase Donald Trump had uttered mere hours before.

As Yahoo News reports, the surreality of our existing reality in which Republican Senators still need convincing of the motives behind an attack they both witnessed and were victims of was pointed out by California Senator Eric Swalwell. “You know how close you came to the mob,” Swalwell told his colleagues. “Most of the public does not know how close these rioters came to you.”

The video footage was narrated by Stacey Plaskett, a Democratic House delegate representing the Virgin Islands, who pointed out Officer Eugene Goodman directing Utah Senator Mitt Romney to run in the opposite direction of a raging mob in the hallways of the Capitol Building before leading that mob away from the Senate chamber and allowing time for Romney to escape with his family.

Another video shows rioters breaking a window with a wooden beam and streaming inside the building as a single police officer attempts to repeal the crowd, some of whom were wearing full tactical gear, brandishing baseball bats and/or carrying riot shields, with a can of pepper spray. According to Yahoo, “One video taken by one of the rioters showed two of them working their way through a crowded hallway conversing, with one saying, ‘All right, no violence,’ and the other replying, ‘It’s too late for that. They don’t listen without that.’ A loud ‘Stop the steal’ chant could then be heard.

Another place the words “Stop the steal” might be heard is in Donald Trump’s address to this very crowd earlier that day, three different times.

While Romney’s family has reached out to thank Officer Goodman on Twitter, perhaps a more thoughtful way to thank him for Senator Romney’s life would be calling for Republicans to pull their fucking heads out of white supremacist voters’ asses and punish treason clearly captured on video.