Trump calls Capitol rioters ‘smart’ in clip from documentary that shocked his aides

Former President Donald Trump had little more than compliments for the rioters who stormed the US Capitol in new documentary footage from March 2021 that was obtained by the January 6 committee this week.

In the footage, published by CNN on Thursday, Mr Trump claims (falsely) that a “small” number of people stormed the Capitol and calls them “smart” for believing his claims about widespread election fraud, which his own attorney admitted in separate audio released this week that the Trump campaign had no evidence to prove.

"They were angry from the standpoint of what happened in the election. Because they're smart, and they see and they saw what happened, and I believe that that was a big part of what happened on January 6,” says the former president in the clip.

More follows...