Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / Rep. Lofgren makes opening statement in hearing to mark 5th anniversary of Jan. 6 attack

Transcript

Rep. Lofgren makes opening statement in hearing to mark 5th anniversary of Jan. 6 attack · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: Well, good morning and thank you, mister Chairman. Five years
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  Speaker 1: ago today was one of our country's darkest days. It's
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  Speaker 1: one of the few dates in history where most people
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  Speaker 1: can remember exactly where they were On January sixth, I
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  Speaker 1: was chair of the House Administration Committee, and therefore was
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  Speaker 1: one of the tellers during the counting of electoral votes
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  Speaker 1: for the twenty twenty election. I stood on the House
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  Speaker 1: rostrum with then Vice President Mike Pence and then Speaker
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  Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi as we formalize the election of Joe Biden
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  Speaker 1: and Kamala Harris. We'd heard plenty of talk in the
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  Speaker 1: days before that many Republican members planned to object to
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  Speaker 1: the certification of several states at the behest of President
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. What we didn't expect was for Trump to
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  Speaker 1: summon an armed mob to march to the Capitol, urging
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  Speaker 1: his supporters to quote fight like he had been feeding
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  Speaker 1: them lies for weeks, fomenting their rage. And at two eleven,
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  Speaker 1: all help broke loose. A man had ripped away a
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  Speaker 1: police officer's riot shield and broke a window on the
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  Speaker 1: Senate side, becoming the first insurrectionists to breach the Capitol.
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  Speaker 1: And then they began to pour in. The Vice President
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  Speaker 1: Pence was evacuated by the Secret Service, avoiding by mere
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  Speaker 1: seconds the insurrectionists, many of whom were calling for his execution.
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  Speaker 1: On the House side, Speaker Pelosi was pulled out by
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  Speaker 1: her detail as members of the mob roamed the halls
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  Speaker 1: of Congress, yelling menacingly, Where's Nancy? Since it was a
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  Speaker 1: goal of the mob and Trump, It's a miracle that
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  Speaker 1: the Vice President and no member of Congress were hurt
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  Speaker 1: or killed that day. However, the same cannot be said
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  Speaker 1: for the brave law enforcement officers that defended our capital
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  Speaker 1: on January sixth, and my thoughts are with them and
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  Speaker 1: their families, as the pain of this day surely has
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  Speaker 1: not paid faded for them in the past five years.
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  Speaker 1: In the months that followed, the House voted to form
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  Speaker 1: an independent nine to eleven commission style group that would
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  Speaker 1: investigate these attacks, and that passed with bipartisan support in
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  Speaker 1: the House, only to be blocked by Senate Republicans. Speaker
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  Speaker 1: Pelosi decided then that the House would form its own
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  Speaker 1: select committee, and that resolution passed two hundred and twenty
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  Speaker 1: two to one ninety. I sit here today with several
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  Speaker 1: of my January sixth committee colleagues, including now Senator Adam Schiff,
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  Speaker 1: who had to step away, will be back in a minute,
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  Speaker 1: former Representative Elaine Lourie of Virginia and former Representative Adam
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  Speaker 1: Kinsinger of Illinois. Our work together was an hence bipartisan
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  Speaker 1: and collaborative effort. We were focused on getting the truth
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  Speaker 1: and then revealing the truth, and I think both our
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  Speaker 1: hearings and the final reports succeeded in doing that. It
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  Speaker 1: was important to us that the information we obtained was
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  Speaker 1: accessible to every American, not some dense document filled with
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  Speaker 1: DC jargon, but a report where people could easily understand
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  Speaker 1: the magnitude of the January sixth attacks and what led
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  Speaker 1: up to that day. January sixth each year serves as
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  Speaker 1: a somber reminder of how fragile American democracy is and
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  Speaker 1: how close we came to losing it. This year is
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  Speaker 1: especially grim as it is the first year in which
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  Speaker 1: insurrectionists are walking free thanks to President Trump's blanket pardons.
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  Speaker 1: The president, who purports to be quote pro police and
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  Speaker 1: tough on crime, sent over a thousand criminals free, many
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  Speaker 1: guilty of assaulting law enforcement officers, and it's absolutely shameful
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  Speaker 1: that President Trump chose on his very first day in
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  Speaker 1: office to turn his back on our men and women
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  Speaker 1: in uniform and excuse the violence that he incited, and
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  Speaker 1: to send these criminals back out into the country to
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  Speaker 1: menace and hurt innocent Americans. Let me just have this
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  Speaker 1: one last thought. No matter how much President Trump and
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  Speaker 1: his allies seek to rewrite the past and cover up
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  Speaker 1: this stain on our history, the American people remember, with
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  Speaker 1: over a million documents and hundreds of hours of footage
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  Speaker 1: from our investigation, it is one of the most documented
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  Speaker 1: crimes in American history, and there is no doubt about
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  Speaker 1: who was the most culpable for that terrible tragedy. January
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  Speaker 1: sixth was about Trump illegally attempting to seize power, and
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  Speaker 1: as president he can continues to aggressively exercise power to
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  Speaker 1: the detriment of the American people, for example his use
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  Speaker 1: of terrorists, which is hurting the pocketbooks of Americans all
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  Speaker 1: across the country. I think it's important that we see
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  Speaker 1: January sixth for what it is and a legal effort
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  Speaker 1: to overturn the Constitution so Trump could have unlimited power.
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  Speaker 1: Wait just a second, we have one more thing. To share.
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• 5:29
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• 5:34
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• 5:37
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