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Floor Speech

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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.

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.

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