Five revelations from the committee investigating the assault on Capitol

The legislative committee investigating the assault on the Capitol on 6 January 2021 revealed on Thursday several findings on how former President Donald Trump was at the "centre" of this attempted coup and pointed to the possibility that the far-right group Proud Boys had planned the attack in advance.

The committee reached these conclusions after interviewing more than 1,000 witnesses and reviewing more than 140,000 documents.

In the first public hearing of the investigative committee, its chairman, Bennie Thompson, did not hesitate to point to Trump as responsible and said the Republican was at the "centre" of the "conspiracy", as he encouraged his supporters to take over the iconic building.

The Democrat also said that what happened was an "attempted coup" and a "multi-step conspiracy" to keep the former president in power.

In making these accusations, he relied on video testimony from Trump's attorney general, his daughter Ivanka and other allies that the then-president wanted to foment a backlash under the false pretext of voter fraud.

Another of the conclusions reached by the committee today, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, is that the far-right Proud Boys group was behind the attack on Congress and, before the assault, between 250 and 300 of its members came to examine the parliamentary seat.

Statements by British filmmaker Nick Quested, who captured on camera the activities of the Proud Boys in the weeks leading up to the attack and on the day itself, were key to this conclusion.

Quested explained that on 6 January "a couple of hundred" members of the far-right group were hanging around near the parliamentary building.

In parallel to the political investigation, the judiciary announced last Monday a new charge of sedition against Enrique Tarrio, president of the far-right group, and four other members of the group. Other extremist organisations under investigation include the Three Percenters, the First Amendment Praetorians and the Aryan Nations.

US Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mark Milley was also among the more than 1,000 people the committee interviewed over the months to find out what happened.

In one video, what remains the country's highest-ranking military officer said it was then-Vice President Mike Pence who ordered National Guard troops to respond to the attack.

Milley also said that Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told him that day that he should not let it be seen that the vice president was taking control and that the narrative had to be that Trump "was still in charge."

Until this Thursday, the official information, which the White House had given at the time, was that the one who gave the mandate to the National Guard to intervene was Trump and not Pence, who was inside the Capitol and was the one who had to certify the transfer of power.

The hearing relived the violence of the assault through the release of a chilling video, which showed some of the most savage acts of the mob of supporters of the former president, and with statements from survivors.

Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, one of the first officers injured by the protesters, described the shooting as a "war zone" in which "people's blood was slipping".

"Never in my wildest dream did I think that as a police officer, as an officer of the law, that I would find myself in the middle of a battle," said Edwards, who, despite suffering a brain injury on 6 January, continued to patrol the area around the parliamentary building, preventing many protesters from entering.

In her statement, she also said that she was not "combat trained", but that she faced hours of "hand-to-hand combat" that day.

The hearing, which was held in prime time, was broadcast live on all US networks with the exception of the conservative Fox.

Meanwhile, Republican National Committee communications director Danielle Alvarez said in a statement today that Americans want Congress to focus on "more pressing crises", including record gas prices and inflation, and "not a political circus".