More than half of Republicans still believe that the 6 January insurrection last year was a conspiracy by the left, suggested a new poll.

       At least 55 per cent of US Republicans believe in the debunked conspiracy theory that left-wing protesters led the riot to try to make former president Donald Trump look bad, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll.

       The House select committee investigating the 6 January riots, meanwhile, began its high-profile primetime hearings on Thursday.

       Mr Trump has been accused of an “attempted coup” over the Capitol riots.

       Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the committee, said during the hearing that Mr Trump had “lit the flame of this attack”.

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       Democrat Bennie Thompson said the riots endangered American democracy.

       “We can’t live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence, that there was fraud in the election,” said former attorney general Bill Barr. He also said he had repeatedly told Mr Trump that he had lost the election and that his claims of election fraud were wrong.

       But Republicans, as per the poll that was conducted online throughout the US, believe that “most of the protesters were peaceful and law-abiding”.

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       At least 58 per cent of them believe the protests were peaceful even though four people died on the day of the attack and at least 140 police officers were assaulted while one Capitol Police officer died the next day.

       The survey also revealed that “overwhelming majorities of respondents from both parties thought it was unacceptable for their party’s members to use violence to achieve political goals”.

       It said that “one in 10 people in each party considered violence to be an appropriate political tool”.

       The poll gathered responses from 1,004 adults between 7 and 8 June.