Time.news – The tears of the agent Hodges, the fist slammed on the table by his colleague Fanone, the confession of the African-American policeman Dunn, who says “they screamed at me negro but I say it here, I voted Joe Biden and my vote counts too”, and the confession of Sergeant Gonell, “I was more afraid that day in the Capitol than during my entire stay in Iraq.”
With the start of the January 6 commission hearings on the assault on Congress, the countdown to the real political moment of the investigation began: Donald Trump’s testimony before the commission. The countdown has started. The Department of Justice, reports MSNBC, has given “green light” to the convocation. But in the meantime, the ‘trial’ of the insurrection has begun.
On the first day of the hearings, the painful statements of four policemen on duty that day and dramatic images, some of which were shown for the first time, were held. Insurgents are seen attacking agents, hitting with kicks and punches, mounting a gallows outside the Capitol and shouting “let’s execute them one by one”, referring to the Democrats, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Mike Pence, the “traitor”.
In a video, agent Daniel Hodges screams in pain, crushed by the crowd. “I didn’t shoot – he reveals – because I was thinking: where did they hide the bombs? Where did they put the weapons? Which cell phone was the trigger? If we had turned the fight into a battle with weapons, we would have lost and that was a battle that we didn’t want to lose “.
At one point Hodges uses a term that will mark a key passage, not just a lexical one. The word is “terrorists”. “There were about 9,400 terrorists there,” he says. Since after 9/11, this word has taken on a very powerful meaning for Americans. Few Democrats have used it so far, and none among the Republicans. This will no longer be the case from now on.
“These people – comments the Italian-American agent Michael Fanone – represent the worst that the United States has to offer”. “And the indifference shown towards my colleagues – he adds, banging his fist on the table – was shameful”.
“On January 6 – observes agent Harry Dunn – there was a guided attack and someone sent them”. “They screamed, ‘Trump is sending us'”, they say. “We thought we were going to die,” adds another. These will be the days when images of the assault will invade the homes of millions of Americans, the word “terrorists” will be repeated and an attempt will be made to tighten the circle around the “instigator”.
The goal is to shed light on what happened in the White House “before, during and after” the assault, says Liz Cheney, one of the two Republican members of the commission. Trump, the big target. Everything revolves around him. In an interview aired on ABC shortly before the start, Cheney had made it clear the goal: the former president could be summoned to testify. Twice, under impeachment, Trump had managed to avoid standing before Congress. As an ex, it could be more difficult.
.