the terrifying testimony of Caroline Edwards

The assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 by supporters of Donald Trump plunged Washington into chaos last year. Since then, the parliamentary commission has conducted an investigation into the responsibility of the former president of the United States in this insurrection. She presented on the night of June 9, live on television, her first conclusions. Accompanied by a British author who informed the assault, Caroline Edwards, the first security guard injured by pro-Trump supporters, returned to the facts.

Thursday evening’s hearing was marked by a highlight: the testimony of Caroline Edwards. Wounded twice by the “Proud Boys”, an extremist paramilitary group, she gave an apocalyptic description of this “scene of war”. This event baptized by a bloodbath. The officers were “all down”, they were “bleeding and spitting blood”. After fainting twice, Caroline will be “woken up” by adrenaline: “I can’t even describe what I saw, I never thought, as a police officer, that I would one day find myself in heart of a battle. I was slipping on people’s blood. »

“Hours of hand-to-hand combat,” she described

Edwards even told the committee that there were “hours of hand-to-hand combat” and that there were “things to deal with that were way beyond what a law enforcement officer was for. had trained”. At the same time as the testimonies, several video and audio excerpts were broadcast to support the victims’ accounts. Never-before-seen videos of scenes of angry mobs attacking the seat of the US Congress, with clear calls to “hang” Mike Pence – former Vice President of the United States. – We also see a Trump supporter chanting the former president’s tweets using a megaphone.

Constituting a major element in the progress of the investigation into the attack on the Capitol, this first hearing will be followed by five other hearings of the same type scheduled by June 23. Since this surge of violence at the heart of American democracy, the commission, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, has been trying to complete the investigation before the November Midterms. Indeed, the Republicans affirm it: “if they find a majority in Congress, the investigation will be buried. For his part, Donald Trump denounces “a witch hunt”.