Former President Donald Trump‘s attempts to rewrite the events of the Capitol insurrection were undercut on Wednesday by a new lawsuit from two Capitol police officers who were on duty during the riots on January 6. Trump’s recent claims that rioters posed “zero threat’ to law enforcement were contradicted by the officers’ lawsuit.
Officer James Blassingame wrote in his legal complaint that he “is haunted by the memory of being attacked, and of the sensory impacts – the sights, sounds, smells and even tastes of the attack remain close to the surface…. He experiences guilt of being unable to help his colleagues who were simultaneously being attacked; and of surviving where other colleagues did not.”
Blassingame also says that the rioters shouted racial slurs at him amid the riots, a claim supported by the several videos of rioters pushing police lines outside the Capitol building.
Trump has been on the media circuit during recent weeks attempting to downplay the Capitol insurrection saying that rioters were being “persecuted” and that they only tried “hugging and kissing the police and the guards.”
Internal reports from the Capitol police say that more than 140 officers were injured during the Capitol insurrection and two officers took their lives by suicide after the riots.
