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Probing The 1/6 Attack On The US Capitol: Politics & The Terror Threat

Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier on January 6, 2021, at the US Capitol in Washington. As Congress prepared to affirm President-elect Joe Biden's victory, tens of thousands of people gathered to show their support for President Donald Trump and his claims of election fraud. Later, hundreds of protesters violently breached the Capitol's defenses and rampaged through the building for hours before security forces regained control.
Julio Cortez/AP
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AP
Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier on January 6, 2021, at the US Capitol in Washington. As Congress prepared to affirm President-elect Joe Biden's victory, tens of thousands of people gathered to show their support for President Donald Trump and his claims of election fraud. Later, hundreds of protesters violently breached the Capitol's defenses and rampaged through the building for hours before security forces regained control.

Yesterday, during nearly three and a half hours of raw, emotional, and often irate testimony, four police officers who were on the front lines of the January 6th battle with pro-Trump rioters at the US Capitol gave the House Select Committee investigating the attack detailed accounts of their harrowing experiences on that fateful day.

Their remarks were punctuated by video montages that demonstrated the unrelenting and vicious violence encountered by the greatly outnumbered law enforcement personnel.

The videos showed an unhinged crowd that was brutal and relentless in their attack, animated by their belief in the fiction that the election of Joe Biden was illegitimate. Officer Harry Dunn repeated, verbatim and unfiltered, the hateful, racist vitriol that the rioters spewed at him.

Tom begins the conversation today with analysis by Luke Broadwater, a longtime friend of Midday who covers Congress for The New York Times. In 2019, as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, Luke broke the story of the Healthy Holly scandal, which led to former Mayor Catherine Pugh and others being sent to prison. Luke and his Sun colleagues won the Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award for their reporting of that story.

Luke Broadwater joins us on our digital line from his home in Columbia, Maryland.

Then, Tom speaks with William Braniff. He is the Director of START, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorismand a Professor of the Practice at the University of Maryland. He joins us on Zoom…

Luke Broadwater covers the US Congress for the New York Times; William Braniff is Director of SMART, The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, and a Professor of the Practice at the University of Maryland.
Luke Broadwater covers the US Congress for the New York Times; William Braniff is Director of SMART, The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, and a Professor of the Practice, University of Maryland.

Listeners are welcome to join us as well…

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Rob is a contributing producer for Midday.