Anniversary of January 6

Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, first of all, I want to acknowledge the wonderful comments by my colleague the Senator from Delaware.

There are three reasons why it is very important we have this discussion:

No. 1, we have got to honor the Capitol Police who were on the receiving end of violent conduct by citizens who stormed the Capitol.

No. 2, it is important that we have accountability for who caused this and to be explicit about who caused this and who was the primary motivator.

And 3, it is extremely important for us not to allow history to be rewritten so what happened then will happen again.

So I want to start most directly with what we all share, and that is an incredible appreciation for the Capitol Police. They showed up that day. These are folks who oftentimes have to commute an hour and a half.

The person who was guarding us--I was in the Gallery of the House of Representatives--had an hour and a half commute each day--to and from work. He had two young kids. And the last thing in the world he wanted to do was to have to use his firearm in order to protect us. But it was clear he was going to do his duty.

We saw so many officers who were in the same place, where they were actually being assaulted by American citizens whose democracy was under assault by American citizens.

I want to express today what I think all of us feel and that is a deep appreciation for the men and women who serve on the Capitol Police force, the Metropolitan Police force, and other authorities who came to the assistance.

Second, it is important for us to be explicit about what happened here and who is accountable. We are having a debate about it. There is an effort to rewrite the history of what happened on January 6, but the fact is indisputable that the primary instigator of January 6 was the President of the United States then and who is the President of the United States now, and that is Donald Trump.

Why do I say that?

He is the one who lost the election. He is the one who created the narrative that it was a stolen election, despite the fact that of all of the challenges, they were largely dismissed by the courts. There was never evidence. There was the use of the Presidential power that he had because he did have and does have many American citizens who believe in him.

With the trust that he had with those everyday Americans, when they heard their leader say that the election was stolen, understandably, they believed him. When he said: Come to Washington; it will be wild, they came to Washington.

When he made his speech at the Ellipse and he said: We will march down to the Capitol, they marched down to the Capitol. When the whole place was falling apart here and he was getting urgent calls from the then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, when he was hearing from others, he was going on to tweet against Mike Pence for not abusing the authority of the Vice President of the United States--by the way, it is not even authority. It is a ceremonial function to certify the election.

It was Donald Trump, who was, in the beginning, the instigator of the lie, the instigator of the call to people around the country who did believe in him to come here and stop the steal and who culminated his efforts with his speech at the Ellipse, telling people to march on the Capitol.

Now, the third reason it is absolutely so important is that history can't just be written, in this case, by the winner. And that is, Donald Trump did win the election. It was a fair-and-square election, despite all those things I just said that are true--not just that I believe are true.

But what happened on that day was shocking to me, and it was shocking to all Americans. Here is why: It is not just--when this happened, I was in the Gallery in the House. I was 30 feet from where the shot was fired. I was standing there witnessing the mob trying to break down the doors that the President enters to give the State of the Union Address and saw the glass and heard the glass shatter.

Even as that was happening, and all of us in the Chamber were bewildered as to what was going to happen, fearful of the violence that was occurring now and how that could escalate, I didn't believe it was happening. I didn't believe it was happening.

I was seeing it. I was hearing it. I was witnessing officers with their guns drawn, but I said to myself: Peter, this is the United States of America. We have a peaceful transfer of power. We win elections. We lose elections, but it is the people of this country who decide who the winner is--not politicians, not a mob attacking the Capitol.

This is a blessing that all of us have been bequeathed by those who came before us, the peaceful transfer of power.

The other aspect of this I couldn't believe was I was witnessing violence--and we have never had violence in the Capitol--in an effort to overturn an election. So two things happened that have never happened: an assault on the Capitol in the effort to overturn the results of an election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power.

That is on Donald Trump. I want to say that explicitly, as uncomfortable as that may be, and whatever policy positions he may have and others and many people may agree with, that attack on the Capitol was inspired, instigated, and accelerated by the explicit actions of the then-President of the United States.

We have to go back to where America began, and that is: We have elections; we do all we can to encourage people to vote; we count the votes; and we accept the outcome as decided by the people of this country.

That is what a democracy has to be about, where the competition is about ideas. It is about aspirational connection to the wonderful Americans that we represent and their confidence that we will serve with the honor, the integrity, and the commitment to their needs, not our preferences, that makes us all so proud to be representatives of the people who sent us here.

So this day is a day of commemoration for those who served us. But it has also got to be a day of accountability and assessment about what happened and how. It can't be whitewashed because the current President has support and was elected. He does. We have accepted that--those of us who didn't vote for him. But that does not whitewash, it doesn't exonerate, it doesn't erase what he did to cause this insurrection. He played the major role in this, and it is forever going to be a stain on that President.

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