‘He’ll be happy’: Capitol rioters believed Trump had ‘invited’ them and they’d face no punishment

The rioters who stormed the US Capitol in an eruption of violence and chaos believed Donald Trump had "invited" them, the former president's impeachment trial has heard.

“I want to step back from the horrors of the attack itself. And look at January 6 from a totally different perspective, the perspective of the insurrectionists themselves,” said Democratic congresswoman Diana DeGette, one of the party’s prosecutors in the Senate.

“Their own statements before, during, and after the attack make clear, the attack was done for Donald Trump, at his instructions and to fulfil his wishes.”

She added: “Donald Trump had sent them there. They truly believed that the whole intrusion was at the president’s request and we know that because they said so.”

Ms DeGette, who represents Colorado's 1st congressional district which includes a chunk of the city of Denver, opened the Democrats’s case on the third day of Mr Trump’s trial in the Senate.

On Wednesday, senators had been shown disturbing and violent video footage, some of it previously unseen, that underscored the violent nature of the rioters, their efforts to track down and “hang” vice president Mike Pence, and how far into the Capitol building they penetrated.

Indeed, on January 6, a joint session of Congress was affirming the electoral college votes of Joe Biden, and some of the rioters reached just yards from where some of the politicians were sitting. 

One video showed Utah senator Mitt Romney running away, after being pointed in a safe direction by Capitol Hill police officer, Eugene Goodman.  

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On Thursday morning, as Democrats wrapped up their prosecution of Mr Trump, they sought to drive home the point that the people involved in the riot - more than 200 people have been arrested and an investigation is ongoing - believed they were acting at the behest of the former president.

Five people lost their lives in the incident, one of them a police officer.

Ms DeGette said many of the protesters and rioters “actually posed for pictures, bragging about it on social media, and they tagged Mr Trump in tweets”. 

“Folks, this was not a hidden crime. The president told them to be there, and so they actually believed they would face no punishment,” she added.

"The crowd at Donald Trump's speech echoed and chanted his words, and when people in the crowd followed his direction and marched to the Capitol, they chanted the same words as they breached this building," she said. "More and more insurrectionists are admitting that they came at Trump's direction."

Last month, just a week before he left office, Mr Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives, which charged him with "inciting an insurrection" in his speech on January 6, when hundreds of his supporters gathered for a "Stop the Steal" rally, at which he repeated his false claim that the election had ben rigged.

Just three US presidents have been impeached by the House - Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Mr Trump. Mr Trump is the only person to have been impeached twice.

None has been found guilty by the Senate, which needs to vote by a two-thirds majority to find a president guilty.

Most observers believe Democrats do not have the votes to find Mr Trump guilty, or vote to prevent him from holding office again.