[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 3 (Wednesday, January 5, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S28-S30]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Recognition of the Majority Leader

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.


                        Anniversary of January 6

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, earlier this morning, I had the 
opportunity to join my colleagues in the Senate Rules Committee for a 
hearing on the progress our Capitol has made to increase the security 
of this complex in the aftermath of January 6.
  We heard testimony from U.S. Capitol Chief of Police Thomas Manger, 
who in his first 6 months has done an outstanding job to make this 
building safer and better prepared for the sorts of horrors that befell 
this hallowed space only 1 year ago this week.
  That day, on January 6, 2021, the men and women of our Capitol Police 
stood on the frontlines of the unimaginable: a violent assault upon the 
U.S. Capitol instigated by former President Trump and carried out by a 
mob of radicals looking to halt the peaceful transfer of power. That 
day, our Capitol policemen were outnumbered and underequipped. Yet 
their bravery and quick thinking saved many lives and prevented a 
violent riot from becoming something even worse. Today, we honor all 
those who stepped up that day, especially those whom we have lost in 
the aftermath.
  In the year since that attack, we have gotten a lot of things done in 
the Senate to strengthen our Capitol Police Force, to ensure from a 
security

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standpoint that the violence of that day never happens again. Thanks to 
this work and to the new leadership of the Capitol Police, the U.S. 
Capitol today is undoubtedly considerably safer than it was a year ago.
  But let's be clear. Let's be very clear. January 6 was not merely a 
senseless act of violence; it was an attempt to reverse through violent 
means the outcome of a free and a fair election. And make no mistake, 
the root cause of January 6 is still with us today. It lives on through 
the Big Lie pushed by Donald Trump that is undermining faith in our 
political system and making our country and our democracy less safe.
  A year after January 6, the biggest threat to our Capitol, our 
Capitol Police, and our democracy today is the Big Lie perpetrated by 
Donald Trump. Without addressing the root causes of the event of 
January 6, the insurrection will not be an aberration; it could well 
become the norm.
  Just like the Senate has the power to pass legislation supporting our 
Capitol Police Force, we have the same power and obligation to pass 
legislation to address these root causes that brought the Big Lie to 
life. That is what my Senate colleagues and I are focused on and are 
committed to doing. We must act.
  More than any other point in recent history, threats of political 
violence are on the rise. Election administrators are facing harassment 
and even death threats for just carrying out their duties. These are 
people who are sort of like civil servants. They are simply in charge 
of making sure the vote is counted fairly and accurately. In many 
States like mine, they are bipartisan. In some States, they are 
nonpartisan. But they are simply doing a job to make sure that the vote 
is counted correctly. Yet there are death threats against them for 
doing just that. By one measure, nearly one-third of these election 
officials say they feel less safe on the job, and many are quitting in 
fear of their safety.
  All of us have a role to play to protect our democratic system--
everyone from our Capitol Police to the voting public, to those of us 
entrusted to serve in elected office.
  Mr. President, just as the Capitol Police have taken the experience 
of January 6 to institute reforms for the future, every Member of the 
U.S. Senate is called to do the same, to reckon with the lessons of 
that terrible day and take action to cure America of the disease of the 
Big Lie. That means passing legislation to protect our democracy from 
subversion and safeguard the right to vote, including the John Lewis 
Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.
  Last year, Senate Democrats tried multiple times to get voting rights 
passed with bipartisan cooperation. Many of us--especially my colleague 
Senator Manchin--tried in good faith to bring the other side to the 
table. But every single time, Republicans mounted a partisan filibuster 
to stop this Chamber from even having a debate on these measures.

  By now, Republicans have made it abundantly clear that bipartisanship 
is not an option when it comes to voting rights. That is against the 
grand tradition where the Voting Rights Act had gotten the support of 
President Reagan and President H. W. Bush and President Bush and got 
large bipartisan margins when it was renewed in the past. That is not 
true anymore. This is a new Republican Party under Donald Trump, and 
they are opposing any attempt--any attempt--to strengthen voting 
rights.
  If this continues, the only option left for Democrats is to explore 
and propose reasonable fixes to restore the Senate so we can get these 
critical pieces of legislation passed into law. We will consider 
proposals to restore the Senate on or before January 17.
  The Republican leader has wasted no opportunity to criticize any 
discussion--even a discussion--on how Members of this body can act to 
restore the Senate to its proper function. Mere moments ago, the 
Republican leader strangely suggested that to make this Chamber better 
debate, compromise, and pass legislation somehow equates to breaking 
the Senate. He criticized the idea that Democrats would go at it alone. 
But I would remind everyone that when Leader McConnell and Republicans 
were in the majority, they used their simple majority for almost every 
major initiative they wished to put in place: the repeal of the 
Affordable Care Act, passing a multitrillion-dollar tax break for the 
ultrarich, and installing three rightwing Supreme Court Justices. They 
were happy to change the rules if it meant getting their picks 
confirmed to the Court.
  So let's stop the crocodile tears right here and right now. The 
asymmetry cannot hold. If Senate Republicans continue to abuse the 
filibuster to prevent this body from acting, the Senate must adapt. 
Just as Robert C. Byrd said, when circumstances change, the rules 
should change.
  There is no better way to heal the damage of January 6 than to act so 
that our constitutional order is preserved for the future. We must do 
so by any means that we can, even if it means Democrats find 
alternative paths forward on our own. For the sake of the vision handed 
down to us by the Framers, Democrats are going to continue this work in 
the weeks to come.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, November 9, 2020, was the first day that 
the Senate was in session following the Presidential election that 
year. Six days had passed since the polls had closed. It had been 2 
days since enough votes were tallied for the Associated Press and TV 
networks, including FOX, to conclude that Joe Biden was elected 
President of the United States. But inside the White House, former 
President Donald Trump was busy. He was tweeting a torrent of lies and 
conspiracy theories to deny the obvious. He was ready to pull the White 
House and the people's house, this U.S. Capitol, down around him in 
order to overturn an election he had lost.
  Never before--never in the history of the United States--has a 
President or Presidential candidate shown such utter contempt for the 
will of the American people or for the peaceful transition of power in 
a democracy. Yet, when the Senate convened 6 days after the election, 
some of our Republican colleagues actually offered excuses for the poor 
feelings and the attitude and the demeanor of the former President and 
his incendiary actions.
  The Republican Senate leader, who was on the floor a few minutes ago, 
defended President Trump at that time, saying that he was ``100 percent 
within his right to pursue recounts and litigation.''
  Never mind that the lawsuits were based on the same lies that former 
President Trump was spewing. Over the next few weeks, those lawsuits 
were initiated.
  What was the final score? So 64 of the 65 legal challenges brought by 
the Trump campaign to dismiss the results of the election were 
dismissed themselves as meritless, many by judges that Donald Trump had 
appointed.
  Also on November 9, a person identified only as ``a senior Republican 
official'' told a Washington Post reporter something that is chilling. 
Speaking about the defeated President Trump lashing out with poisonous 
lies and conspiracy theories, this nameless Republican asked: ``Well, 
what's the downside for humoring him for a little bit of time? No one 
seriously thinks the results will change.''
  This unnamed Republican official went on to say: ``He went golfing 
this weekend. It's not like he's plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from 
taking power on January 20. He's tweeting about filing some lawsuits. 
The lawsuits will fail, then he'll tweet some more on how the election 
was stolen, then he'll leave.''
  That was the Republican attitude toward President Trump after the 
election results were in. In fact, we know now that plotting to prevent 
Joe Biden from taking power on January 20 was exactly what Donald Trump 
was up to. He abused the powers of his office to exert extraordinary 
pressure on the Justice Department.
  I know this because I was in the actual deposition in the Judiciary 
Committee, which I chair, when those in the Justice Department who were 
contacted by the President for this purpose testified under oath.
  Politicians and elected officials in key States were also contacted 
by President Trump. And the Vice President was drawn into the 
President's plans to nullify an American election. We came perilously 
close to losing our democracy at that point.

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  It survives today only because men and women of conscience--Democrats 
and Republicans--refused to cooperate with the former President.
  As it became apparent that he could not contort the bureaucracy to 
nullify the election, and it wasn't working in the courts either, 
Donald Trump turned to a weapon--a desperate weapon--seldom used in 
American history: political violence.
  On December 19, 2020, Trump tweeted: ``Big protest in DC on January 
6. Be there. WILL BE WILD!''
  That was one of the several tweets he sent out summoning his 
followers to Washington.
  On January 5, 2021, a year ago today, Steve Bannon, once one of 
Trump's chief strategists, then discarded, then embraced--I can't keep 
track--he is now back in the Trump fold. He used his podcast on that 
day, a year ago today, to telegraph the chaos that was going to erupt 
the next day.
  Steve Bannon told his listeners: ``We're going into something that's 
never happened before in American history,'' he said that a year ago, 
``It's not going to happen like you think it's going to happen. Okay, 
it's going to be quite extraordinarily different.''
  Bannon said: ``All I can say is strap in. . . . It's all converging, 
and now we're on the point of attack tomorrow.''
  That is a quote from Steve Bannon, a year ago today, about January 6, 
2021. I don't have to remind anyone what happened that day. Many of us 
lived it. Some may try to downplay it or deny it was any threat. They 
know better. They know the truth.
  If you were sitting in this Chamber, with Vice President Pence 
sitting in your chair, preparing to count the electoral vote to 
determine the President of the United States, and you noted the Vice 
President's staff come roaring through that door, reach up and grab him 
by the arms, and pull him off the podium where you are now sitting--
people were dumbstruck. They couldn't imagine what was going on here 
for a moment. And then to have a member of the Capitol Police come 
before us and stand where you are seated and to announce that this was 
going to be the safe room in the Capitol--they were going to start 
bringing staff members in to line the backs of the floor here because 
this was a safe place to be, and we should just sit tight and be quiet.
  Well, then we started hearing the roar outside, as the mob was 
descending on this building. And within 10 minutes, another member of 
the Capitol Police stood where you are sitting right now and said: 
Evacuate the Chamber as quickly as possible. Leave through these doors 
in an orderly fashion.
  That was the reality of life in the Capitol and the business of the 
Senate when the mob--the Trump mob--descended on January 6. We saw what 
happened. Many of us left and had to follow it by videos that were 
taken and photos later of people who were assaulted. When it was all 
over, five people died, and 140 members of law enforcement were 
assaulted and victimized and physically attacked.
  Those who dismiss it or don't want to talk about it on the floor have 
to accept the reality; the reality was there was death and violence 
against law enforcement officials that day. And the notion that somehow 
all of these people carrying Trump signs and banners were actually 
Democrats--what were they thinking? To believe that for a moment is to 
be totally deluded when it comes to the truth.
  So what has happened since? The largest criminal prosecution in the 
history of the United States has ensued. All of those videotapes that 
were taken by the participants and others in the course of this 
insurrectionist mob have been used to establish evidence to bring 
criminal charges against more than 700 individuals, some of whom are 
already serving time in prison for what they did that day, and it is 
not over. It is anticipated that another 300 will be charged, some with 
even more serious crimes.
  This was no minor incident or, as a Republican Congressman from 
Georgia said, ``just tourists visiting the Capitol.'' No, it was a 
deadly moment. People died as a result of what happened that day. 
People have been changed forever as a result of what happened that day. 
It was for real.
  Today, the windows and furniture that were shattered by the rioters 
have been replaced. The National Guard members have gone home. Thank 
goodness the security fence around the Capitol is finally down, but 
there are many invisible scars from January 6. Five police officers who 
battled the mob died. More than 140 were wounded.
  And the Big Lie of the stolen election that Trump used to summon his 
mob continues to metastasize. Over the last year, Republican lawmakers 
across the country have used this Big Lie as a pretext to pass laws to 
make it more difficult for Americans to vote.
  The Republican leader came to the floor and said 94 percent of the 
people who voted in the last Presidential election said it was easy. 
Well, I am sure that is true. It was the largest turnout since 1900.

  But what has happened in almost 20 states since then? Those State 
legislatures controlled by the Republican Party have tried to make it 
more difficult in the next election for the same people to vote. That 
is a fact.
  And Americans now distrust our elections. More now believe that 
political violence is acceptable, and that has to change. Our democracy 
cannot endure with these cancers spreading.
  Abraham Lincoln called American democracy ``the last best hope on 
Earth.'' This last year has taught us that it may be the last best 
hope, but it is fragile. Our generation--every generation--has to be 
willing to fight to protect it. For the sake of our forbearers, who 
gave us this democracy, and for our children and grandchildren, who 
will inherit its future, I am begging my colleagues on both sides of 
the aisle to condemn what happened in this Chamber on January 6, 2021, 
and to make it clear, once and for all, on a bipartisan basis that we 
stand together, united, for this democracy to succeed.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican whip.
  Mr. THUNE. I ask unanimous consent that I be able to complete my 
remarks before the vote gets underway.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection.