Providing for Consideration of H.R. National Commission to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol Complex Act; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Emergency Security Supplemental to Respond to January 6th Appropriations Act, 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, the January 6 insurrection against our Congress, our Constitution, and our election was one of the worst political crimes in American history.

It interrupted the peaceful transfer of power. It injured, wounded, hospitalized more than 140 law enforcement officials who were punched, kicked, maced, spat upon, and speared by Confederate battle flags, Donald Trump flags, American flags. They had eyes gouged. One lost several fingers.

They turned the Capitol of the United States and this Chamber into a crime scene.

The independent January 6 commission legislation brought forth by Chairman Thompson, a Democrat, and Congressman Katko, a Republican, is bipartisan in composition: five Republicans and five Democrats, equal subpoena power. It is nonpartisan in design and in function.

Its whole purpose is to determine the events and the causes of those events on January 6 so we can prepare effectively to stop it from ever happening again to the people of America.

The key precedent was the 9/11 Commission, which was critical for mobilizing public attention to the dangers of al-Qaida and other foreign terror networks and helping us to rectify inadequacies in our security infrastructure and to prepare to defend our democracy.

Today, the number one security threat facing the American people is domestic violent extremism, and we saw what domestic violent extremism can do when it broke into our House on January 6.

According to the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas: ``Domestic violent extremism poses the most lethal and persistent terrorism-related threat to our country today.''

Abraham Lincoln made a beautiful speech that I recommend to all of my colleagues before they vote on this legislation today, the Lyceum Address, where he said all the armies of Europe, all the armies of Africa and Asia, could never conquer American democracy. But if there is a mortal threat to us, it will come from within, from dissension within, and threats to the constitutional order from within.

We must pay attention to what happened on January 6, and we must honor those brave men and women who fought for hours against medieval- style waves of violence raining down upon them on that day. And we must do honor to future generations of Americans to find out exactly what happened and why, and how to stop it in the future.

Let's pass this legislation today.

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