[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 136 (Sunday, August 1, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5234-S5235]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               JANUARY 6

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it is hard to keep up with Donald Trump, 
particularly his Big Lie. Like the coronavirus, it is constantly 
mutating.
  A couple days ago, I read that one of the most vocal competitors of 
that Big Lie, Mike Lindell, the MyPillow Guy, has pulled all his 
advertising from FOX News. Why? Because FOX refused to sell him airtime 
for a commercial repeating the dangerous, discredited lie that the 
Presidential election was stolen. It is hard to imagine what level of 
conspiracy craziness it takes for even FOX Network to say that goes too 
far, but we have reached that point when it comes to the MyPillow Guy.
  I don't know how Mr. MyPillow is going to peddle his products now. 
Maybe he will stand on the street corner handing out flyers next to one 
of those blow-up, scarecrow balloons that gyrates wildly in the wind. 
At this point, it is hard to rule anything out.
  But there is another development on the Big Lie that is far darker 
and more disturbing. According to recent published reports, former 
President Donald Trump is now denouncing the brave police officers who 
testified last week before the select committee in the House about the 
mob insurrection on January 6 in this Chamber, in this Capitol. He is 
disparaging them with a word which I will not repeat.
  His attacks on these officers is reprehensible and inexcusable and 
totally predictable. These officers and hundreds more battled a 
murderous mob sent to the Capitol by President Donald Trump to overturn 
an election. He sent that mob to attack this Capitol and American 
democracy because he couldn't bear the shame of losing. He wanted to 
overturn the election and cling to power like a tin-pot dictator. The 
police officers he now denounces still bear the wounds from the 
insurrection he ordered. Some other Trump supporters have attacked at 
least one of the police officers who testified as a ``crisis actor.''
  This morning's New York Times has an article by Maureen Dowd, which I 
would like to quote from. She is speaking of Laura Ingraham, one of the 
political pundits on FOX Network. It says:

       Laura Ingraham even gave awards--``Best Exaggerated 
     Performance,'' ``Best Political Performance'' . . . `'for the 
     Performance in an Action Role''--to the police who recounted 
     their terrifying battles with the mob. ``They came across as 
     political actors,'' Ingraham said. ``That doesn't help 
     anything. We want the police to be just police.''
       Even as Ingraham was describing as ``actors'' those cops 
     who faced danger, Erin Smith was trying to get the death of 
     her husband, a veteran Washington patrolman--the second 
     officer to take his life after the insurrection--reclassified 
     from a suicide to a death in the line of duty.
       After he was hit in the head with a metal pole during the 
     rampage, he fell into a dark depression, his wife told The 
     Times. On the way to his shift, he pulled his car off the 
     George Washington Parkway and killed himself with his service 
     weapon.
       More than casting the police who told their stories as 
     drama queens and fabulists, four House Republicans, 
     representing the ``dregs of Congress''--

  In Maureen Dowd's words--

       turned up at a Washington jail on Thursday to shine a light 
     on the plight of insurrection suspects. One of them, 
     Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona, hailed them as 
     ``political prisoners.''
       Since when do Republicans care more about criminals in jail 
     than the cops who put them there? Since when do they coddle 
     domestic terrorists?
       Since Donald Trump.

  There was a point decades ago where, in desperation to stop the 
ravings of a Senator from Wisconsin, a man named Joseph Welch said to 
the Senator: Have you no shame? At long last, have you no shame?
  That is what Joseph Welch famously asked Senator Joseph McCarthy when 
McCarthy tried to turn his vicious smear campaign against members of 
the U.S. Army after his lies had already broken the lives of so many 
Americans.
  Now an angry, embittered ex-President is turning his vicious smear 
tactics against a different group of democracy's defenders. It is 
pointless to ask if the former President feels shame or decency or 
empathy. We learned long ago that he is incapable of such feelings.
  So I ask my Republican colleagues: What do you say? At long last, 
will you

[[Page S5235]]

tell the former President ``enough''? ``no more''? ``you have gone too 
far''? ``this must stop''?
  You were all here on January 6, as I was. You know those Capitol 
Police and Metropolitan Police risked their lives to defend you and me. 
Will you now defend them when they are being smeared so scandalously
  We are here on a Sunday, working to pass a historic bipartisan plan 
to build the backbone of a strong 21st century economy that benefits 
all Americans. Can't we also have a bipartisan backbone to defend the 
men and women who defended the Capitol on January 6?
  A few minutes ago, I walked into the building. They were there. You 
know they are going to be there to protect you, the men and women of 
the Capitol Police. Theirs is a dangerous job now, more dangerous 
because of January 6. We salute them for their bravery, and those who 
have questioned that bravery have really gone too far.

                          ____________________