Cloture Motion

Floor Speech

The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 54, nays 45, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 22 Ex.] YEAS--54 Banks Barrasso Blackburn Boozman Britt Budd Capito Cassidy Collins Cornyn Cotton Cramer Crapo Cruz Curtis Daines Ernst Fetterman Fischer Graham Grassley Hagerty Hawley Hoeven Husted Hyde-Smith Johnson Justice Kennedy Lankford Lee Lummis Marshall McConnell McCormick Moody Moran Moreno Mullin Murkowski Paul Ricketts Risch Rounds Schmitt Scott (FL) Scott (SC) Sheehy Sullivan Thune Tillis Tuberville Wicker Young NAYS--45 Alsobrooks Baldwin Bennet Blumenthal Blunt Rochester Booker Cantwell Coons Cortez Masto Duckworth Durbin Gallego Gillibrand Hassan Heinrich Hickenlooper Hirono Kaine Kelly Kim King Klobuchar Lujan Markey Merkley Murphy Murray Padilla Peters Reed Rosen Sanders Schatz Schiff Schumer Shaheen Slotkin Smith Van Hollen Warner Warnock Warren Welch Whitehouse Wyden NOT VOTING--1 Ossoff

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the resolution offered by my colleague from the State of Washington, and I thank her for that.

This is personal. For many of us, it is personal. We were here on the Senate floor on January 6, 2021. Vice President Pence was presiding. I was sitting at this very desk. A few minutes after 2 o'clock, the Secret Service came in and literally removed him from his chair.

We knew there were demonstrations outside, but we didn't know how serious or how violent they had become.

A few minutes after that, a Capitol policeman stood in front of this Chamber and said to all of us: Stay in this room. Just take your seats. This is going to be a safe room. There will be many people coming in here, and we will keep them safe.

We didn't know what was happening outside, but we knew something serious was going on.

We waited another 10 minutes, and the same Capitol policeman said: A change of orders--leave immediately and exit through that door.

We all filed out through that door and headed for one of the buildings on Capitol Hill where there was a safe space for Members of the Senate to meet.

I wasn't sure what was going on in the House of Representatives. I still don't know all the details. But the reality was the mob--the insurrectionist mob--was taking over the Capitol. Thousands of people were storming into this building--not for a peaceful demonstration by any means but, sadly, for violence and destruction.

That day was the worst day I can recall in the history of the Senate in terms of our respect for this building that has become a symbol--not only for the United States but for the world--for peace and democracy.

And I thought of those poor Capitol policemen who were asked to defend us with their lives. They were asked to risk their lives for us. And they did. Four or five of them lost their lives as a result of it, and over 140 were seriously injured. Some of the things that were done to them were outrageous. You have seen the videotape. We don't have to speculate on what it was. We saw it, as they tore down building structures, as they beat up on these cops as many of them faced death and knew at the time it was that serious.

The grimmest reality of those riots was the subsequent death of five of these law enforcement officers and the injuries to approximately 140 others, many of whom still pay that price to this day.

Last week, President Trump, who incited the violence, commuted the sentences of 14 individuals and granted full, complete, and unconditional pardons to approximately 1,500 others convicted of offenses related to the January 6 attack. Many of the perpetrators have shown a stunning lack of remorse following their violent assaults on the brave members of the U.S. Capitol Police and DC Metropolitan Police who protected my life and the lives of so many others that day.

For example, last August, David Dempsey, just a few hours after receiving a 240-month prison sentence for attacking police on January 6 with a flagpole, crutches, pepper spray, and pieces of furniture, called in to a gathering of supporters outside the DC jail. In reference to Trump's opponents, Mr. Dempsey said:

Don't celebrate too hard man, because that sentence is only gonna last like 6 months.

He knew that if President Trump were elected and had the power, he would pardon him, despite what he had done to the Capitol Police.

Devlyn Thompson attempted to throw a speaker at police officers, which ended up hitting and injuring a fellow rioter, and hit a police officer with a metal baton.

Daniel ``D.J.'' Rodriguez, a California man who drove a stun gun into an officer's neck during one of the most violent clashes of the Capitol riot, was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison before President Trump granted him clemency.

Andrew Taake pepper-sprayed police officers and hit one with a metal whip. He was supposed to serve 74 months in a Federal prison in Beaumont, TX, but he was pardoned by President Trump.

These are just a few--a few--of the hundreds of individuals President Trump decided to pardon in his unconscionable Executive order. The list of crimes committed by these thugs goes on for pages and pages and pages of court documents.

Winston Churchill said once:

Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

That is why we must continue sounding the alarm on the violence and chaos of that day to ensure it never happens again. We must be clear that violence for political purposes is never, never acceptable. It has no place in democracy.

The men and women who bravely defended the Members of this body deserve more, and we should honor them for their heroic efforts, not excuse the thugs who attacked this body and the ideals it represents. President Trump was wrong in pardoning these men who attacked the police.

I thank Senator Murray for introducing this resolution condemning President Trump's pardons of the January 6 insurrectionists who assaulted our brave law enforcement officers, and I am disgusted-- disgusted--that our Republican colleagues won't join us in honoring the men and women who risk their lives every single day for us. They risk their lives for us, and Senator Murray has asked us to recognize that fact and say violence against them is never acceptable.

We couldn't even get a bipartisan vote for that. It is a shame it has reached that point, but it has.

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