Alex Padilla

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. I mentioned a few minutes ago, I had seen a video that sickened my stomach of a U.S. Senator being manhandled, we now know, by Federal agents and dragged out of a hearing room.

Now there is a second video that is even worse. He has been thrown to the ground--again, manhandled, brutally taken down, handcuffed. It was disgusting.

Anyone who looks at this--it will turn their stomach to look at this video and see what happened. It reeks--reeks--of totalitarianism. This is not what democracies do.

Senator Padilla was there legitimately in that building to ask questions of what is going on in California, which everybody wants to know answers to. We don't get answers when we ask the administration questions in one way or another. So Senator Padilla was exercising his duty as a Senator for his constituents to try and find out what happened and, instead, he gets manhandled, thrown out of the room, thrown on the ground, and handcuffed.

We need a full investigation immediately as to what happened and who did what and what is going to be done to see that this doesn't happen again to Senator Padilla or other American citizens who are seeking their right to redress. It is despicable; it is disgusting; it is so un-American--so un-American--and we need answers. We need answers immediately.

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