Several rioters called Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to ask for items they had left there in the Capitol building after the riots of 6 January, representative Jamie Raskin revealed.
Mr Raskin said in an interview that rioters were “asking whether there was a lost and found because they forgot their phone there, or they left their purse or what have you.”
The Democrat told the Insider: “The officers quickly got on the phone and said, yeah, just give us your name, your address, your social, you know, and we’ll tie up those loose ends.”
He added: “But what’s so fascinating to me about that there really were people who felt as if they had been summoned to Washington by the president.”
Ms Pelosi’s office was taken over by the rioters on 6 January and her staff had to hide in a conference room.
Mr Raskin, one of the members of the House select committee investigating the events of 6 January, said: “When they [the lost and found callers] were told that they were trespassing and invading the Capitol, they said the president invited them to be there.”
He continued: “They didn’t have any kind of subtle understanding of the separation of powers. They just thought that the number one person in the US government had invited them to be there, and therefore they had a right.”
In the interview, the representative said “it underscores the central role that Donald Trump played in it. But it does create a problem for assigning guilt at different levels of conduct.”
Speaking of the events of the day, he said: “I would like people to understand that it was not one, indivisible sequence of action, but there were different components to what was happening.”
Meanwhile, earlier last week, Ms Pelosi — who is not a member of the committee — had said that she had “confidence in the bipartisan nature of the committee.”
