By Keith Whitcomb Jr.
RUTLAND HERALD
It wasn’t just another day in January, said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., on Thursday, a year after a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to subvert the electoral process.
“In the moment, that night, and the next day, senators on both sides of the aisle called this out for the travesty that it was,” said Leahy, a Democrat who serves as president pro tempore of the Senate. “But amnesia has set in in some quarters. There’s been a concerted effort to downplay or grossly mischaracterize the terrible events of that day by some members in both chambers of Congress. It was not, as has been said, ‘just another day in January.’ What an insult to those who lost their lives, and to those who suffered injuries from which they still struggle to recover.”
Five deaths were reported in connection with the events of Jan. 6, 2021. One person was shot by Capitol Police, one died from a drug overdose, three died from what a medical examiner labeled natural causes. Over 130 officers were injured in the attack with four who responded dying from suicide in the months that followed.
“The New York Times has observed, our nation faces an existential threat from a movement that is openly contemptuous of democracy and has shown a willingness to use violence to achieve its ends,” said Leahy. “No self-governing society can survive such a threat by denying it exists. To deny is to be complicit in what happened.”
At the beginning of his remarks, Leahy described the events of Jan. 6, 2021, as an attempted coup “not against a president but by a president, who promoted and still promotes a litany of lies to overturn the results of an election in order for him to hold on to power that he no longer possesses.”
Leahy is 81. He announced recently that he would not seek reelection this year. He recalled first seeing the Senate Chamber as a teenager, visiting with his parents and sister from their home in Montpelier. He would see the chamber again as a law school student, sitting in the gallery.
“I saw the members of the Senate in both parties speak to the conscience of our nation, the conscience of our nation, and try to protect our Constitution,” he said.
He was elected senator in 1975.
“A year ago, I sat on the floor of the Senate as Vice President Pence was announcing the certification of ballots,” said Leahy. “I saw him doing this in a straightforward and honest way, even though he knew that at the end of the count he would soon no longer be vice president nor would Donald Trump be president.”
Police would then enter the room and escort Pence out. Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, then-president pro tempore, recessed the Senate.
“Most of us, I remember looking around here, we were wondering what was happening until I saw, a few feet from me, I saw a man wearing a vest that said ‘police.’ On the Senate floor he was carrying a submachine gun. I had never seen anything like this in the U.S. Senate,” said Leahy.
Police rushed people through a back door and to the Capitol building’s basement from where they were shuttled to a secure location.
“I was still trying to sort through my mind what was happening. Officers were going through the halls and one officer came along, he took my arm and he said ….” Leahy paused for several moments before resuming his speech. “… he said, ‘we’re going to watch out for you, Shamrock.’”
Shamrock was the code name police gave Leahy in 2001 when a letter containing anthrax was sent to him not long after the September 11 terror attacks on New York City. Letters were also sent to Sen. Tom Daschle and members of the media. The letters killed five people and injured 17 others.
According to Leahy, some in the shelter room suggested that the Senate use its legal authority to declare their new location the Senate chamber and finish their business there.
“I said ‘no, we should not be hiding here.’ As soon as it was safe to go back to the Senate, whenever it is, we should go back there, all of us, and have the American people see us there,” he said, adding that nearly all loudly agreed with him.
Congress did its job in the end, he said, certifying election results that would withstand numerous, frivolous legal challenges from Trump and his followers.
Leahy called the police and members of the National Guard contingents who responded only to be attacked, threatened and insulted, heroes.
“That day one year ago was such a sad and wrenching day,” he said. “So disturbing was it to see such hatred, hatred and anger, to see the Confederate battle flag paraded in the Capitol where it never was brought, even during the Civil War. And to see Nazi emblems and other symbols of hate and violence carried by some of those in the mob. It was so horrifying to see our brave police officers, many of them war veterans who defended America in Iraq and Afghanistan, not just disregarded and disrespected but brutally attacked even by the wielding of poles bearing the American flag used as bludgeons and spears.”
A democracy has to be founded upon the truth, said Leahy, that and the rule of law.
“Our job is fundamental, to defend and advance the truth, and to protect the rule of law itself,” he said. “As dean of this body, that’s what I will do until the day I walk off this floor.”
keith.whitcomb @rutlandherald.com
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