Angry, violent, reckless: testimony paints shocking portrait of Trump

The star witness at the hastily arranged hearing was Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to the then White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows. She described how Trump wanted to go to the US Capitol with his supporters on January 6 after giving a fiery speech that urged them to fight for him.

The committee also heard how Trump erupted in fury on 1 December after his attorney general, William Barr, gave an interview to the Associated Press saying there was no evidence of widespread election fraud.

How bad his critics think it was, there is always another revelation around the corner that shows it was even worse. Perhaps most incredible of all, the man who sought to overthrow American democracy is the frontrunner for the Republican party presidential nomination in 2024. For the moment, at least.