[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 18 (Monday, February 1, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S207-S208]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                PROTESTS

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, on another matter to bring to our 
leaders, you know, I first came to this Capitol when I was a teenager 
with my parents. We came down from Vermont. I remember looking around 
and walking through it, thinking what a privilege it was just to walk 
here. And then, during my years at Georgetown Law School, I would come 
here often just to see it, just to watch it, and to walk up the Mall 
and look at the Capitol and say: That is democracy.
  I never thought I would work here, but I have now for a number of 
years.

[[Page S208]]

I found the assault on and the defilement of the U.S. Capitol mere 
weeks ago was an attack on the bedrock of our democratic institutions 
right here in the citadel of our democracy.
  The toll that this insurrection has taken and will take on our great 
Nation will be felt for so long. In addition to the physical damage 
done, there is a human toll that this attack has taken on the lives 
lost and the injuries suffered by so many brave officers of the Capitol 
Police.
  I was both in this Chamber and in the House Chamber during the time 
this attack unfolded. The next morning, I recorded some of the 
lingering physical damage to this building in several photographs that 
I made.
  But the attack also is about things you can't photograph, the unseen 
scars in the Capitol community--the staff members and the Capitol 
employees who work every day to help make our Capitol Building function 
as it needs to function. Most Members of Congress were also roiled by 
this attack. It has shaken all of us.
  Chad Pergram of FOX News has written an essay that captures this 
heavy toll on the people who work in the Capitol. I was so moved when I 
read his essay.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the 
Record the essay by Chad Pergram written on January 31, 2021
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     [From Fox News, Jan. 31, 2021]

                       The Speaker's Lobby: Scars

                           (By Chad Pergram)

       I know of U.S. Capitol Police officers who are hurting. 
     Smarting. Reeling.
       This, nearly a month after the insurrection at the Capitol 
     they are paid to protect.
       I know of Congressional aides who are hurting. Smarting. 
     Reeling.
       This, after a violent mob shattered windows and jimmied 
     doors, storming through the Capitol in which they work.
       And these are the aides who weren't at the Capitol on 
     January 6.
       These were staffers working from home during the pandemic. 
     They're still upset after seeing an insurrection of the 
     highest order in their workplace.
       And then there are the aides who were working at the 
     Capitol on 1/6.
       I know these aides are hurting. Smarting. Reeling.
       They huddled for hours under desks. In a coat closets. In 
     restrooms. Barricaded, in rooms, just as they were taught in 
     a post-Columbine world.
       This, as the violent horde marauded through Congressional 
     offices and deployed Trump flagpoles like battering rams to 
     break into the Speaker's Lobby off the House chamber.
       These are the scars which will take time to heal.
       But they are scars.
       And scars never disappear.
       The United States Capitol bears ugly scars of that 
     mortifying day. The lesions which remain are the hideous 
     fencing encapsulating the Capitol, draped with spirals of 
     concertina wire. There are the National Guard troops in 
     fatigues, toting M5 carbines, guarding the American Capitol.
       But the scars will remain in heads and hearts long after 
     the troops depart.
       An unsettling silence cloaks you once you enter the 
     Capitol's secure perimeter these days. You pass through the 
     fencing, showing your pass a few times as you walk. You pass 
     stretches of grass which is the Russell Senate Park.
       It is a park in name only.
       The grass is there. Some frost in winter. Benches. The 
     Robert A. Taft Memorial and Carillon, honoring the late 
     Senate Majority Leader.
       But you can't really get there. You cross Constitution 
     Avenue. A car, like yours, already cleared for the ``Green 
     Zone,'' may trundle by.
       There is no bustle.
       Capitol Hill was always a hive of activity.
       AidesTouristsLobbyistsSightseersSenatorsJournalistsGawkersJo
     ggersToddlersPoliceOfficers.
       Before the pandemic, a jumble of humanity. Just coming and 
     going. Doing the nation's business. Senators rushing to the 
     Senate chamber to confirm the Assistant Interior Secretary. 
     Or maybe a family just in from Spokane who've never set foot 
     in DC, pushing a three-year-olds' stroller, ambling around 
     the grounds. Lobbyists piling out of cabs on Independence 
     Avenue in front of the Longworth House Office Building.
       Now, a stillness.
       The pandemic hushed the daily bedlam of Capitol Hill.
       Lawmakers may only show up to vote. And on the House side, 
     some don't even do that, voting from home. There are aides 
     who haven't darkened the door in close to a year. There might 
     be a smattering of tourists. Some joggers. Dog walkers.
       A funereal silence.
       That silence is incongruous with the quotidian scramble of 
     Capitol Hill. The Capitol and its environs are a shell of 
     what they once were.
       The white marble is still there. The majesty of the Dome 
     remains. But that silence is haunting. The silence is a 
     signal.
       It tells you something bad happened here.
       I've been back at the Capitol most days since the riot. I 
     stayed at a hotel close to the Capitol around the 
     inauguration--so I could easily get in and out for work. My 
     wife drove me in the other days and dropped me off. If the 
     Capitol were locked down like this in any other circumstance, 
     I would likely hire an Uber, Lyft or take Metro. But the 
     pandemic presents a new level of difficulty just getting to 
     work and parking my car.
       But I drove myself to the Capitol one day last week. 
     Officers inspected my badge and checked my trunk on multiple 
     occasions--twice after I got inside the Green Zone. There was 
     a lot of confusion about which way to go and where you were 
     supposed to drive. But after a while, I finally parked where 
     I usually do. There were no other cars there.
       And then there was the silence. Just the rustle of 
     shriveled leaves, clinging to the trees, bombed by tiny ice 
     pellets from the sky.
       No horns. No cars. No people.
       The silence is one of those scars.
       Some who work on Capitol Hill may never return, traumatized 
     by 1/6.
       That's a scar, too.
       And, there's likely an emerging scar.
       The Capitol won't be the same.
       Multiple investigations are now underway as to what went 
     wrong at the Capitol on 1/6. But one of the most 
     consequential lines came from Acting U.S. Capitol Police 
     Chief Yogananda Pittman. Pittman briefed House Appropriators 
     about the attack last week.
       ``In my experience, I do not believe there (were) any 
     preparations that would have allowed for an open campus in 
     which lawful protesters could exercise their First Amendment 
     right to free speech, and, at the same time, prevent the 
     attack on the (Capitol) grounds that day,'' said Pittman.
       Yes. There will be discussions about personnel, better 
     communications and barricades. Many reporters picked up on 
     what Pittman said about no ``preparations'' failing to avert 
     ``the attack.''
       But there's another important line from Pittman. She use 
     the phrase ``open campus.''
       That is what the U.S. Capitol complex generally was. An 
     open campus. And, it remains to be seen if it ever will be 
     again.
       Prior to 1/6, people could traipse about the campus at 
     their leisure. Walk across the Capitol plaza. Pre-pandemic, 
     people could clear security and spend all day wandering 
     around the House and Senate office buildings, if they so 
     chose. It didn't matter if they had an appointment to see 
     someone or not.
       The Capitol itself was closed unless you were there on 
     official business. You could also come to the Capitol to 
     watch the House and Senate in action from the galleries.
       The difference between the Capitol, and say, the State 
     Department, is that the public doesn't have the right to just 
     show up at an executive branch building and waltz around. 
     Even the perimeter. But access to the Capitol is 
     quintessentially Congressional. It's a two-way exchange on 
     Capitol Hill. The people demand to interact with the people 
     who represent them in Washington. And, lawmakers insist that 
     their constituents have access to them. It's one of the only 
     ways American democracy functions.
       Moreover, lawmakers want people to enjoy the grounds. The 
     view from the Capitol Hill vista, looking westward toward the 
     Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial is one of the most 
     dramatic in the world.
       Openness made the Capitol unique. It also made it an 
     incredibly soft target--nearly two decades after 9/11.
       So how does Congress address this? Barricades? 
     Appointments? No one on the grounds unless they've cleared 
     security blocks away? Controlled access? The closures of 
     Constitution and Independence Avenues?
       They hardened the White House facility in the early 1980s 
     after the West Berlin discotheque bombing. They shuttered 
     Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House after the 
     1995 Oklahoma City bombing. That also forced Congressional 
     officials to shut off many streets which run between the 
     House and Senate office buildings.
       So what scars will the Capitol now bear now?
       The Capitol will be different. More restricted. Less 
     access.
       And the quiet serves as a reminder to the bedlam on January 
     6.

  Mr. LEAHY. With that, Madam President, I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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