Cloture Motion

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, many of us who were here on January 6 have pretty indelible memories. I am looking at Senator Murray, who has particularly harrowing memories. One of mine is, I was one of the last people out of the Senate, and by the time we got to the room where we were sequestered for our own protection from the mob, colleagues were irate, and they had been frightened.

There is footage of Republican Senators running through the halls to get away from the mob. I remember one of our colleagues shouting out that we should get back over here to vote even if it meant protesters would have to be shot--again, a Republican.

There were 600 of the rioters here who committed violence on police officers, and nearly 200 of them used weapons. They were convicted of this after all proper, fair procedures in an American court of law.

Then the notion of pardons started to come up, and we were basically shushed by our Republican colleagues. Oh, that will never happen.

The Vice President said: If you committed violence on January 6, you shouldn't be pardoned. In fact, he said ``obviously''--``obviously you shouldn't be pardoned.''

Another colleague in the Judiciary Committee chastised Democrats for asking the Attorney General nominee what she would do with respect to the violent January 6 protesters. Would she recommend that the President pardon them? And we were chastised for the absurdity of that question. That is an ``absurd and unfair hypothetical to even ask.''

Over in the House, Jim Jordan said that he didn't think anybody violent was going to be pardoned. ``I think,'' he said, ``he is going to focus on . . . all the people who didn't commit any violence.''

Another colleague on the Judiciary Committee said he was against any such pardons ``for people who assaulted cops, threw stuff at cops, broke down doors, broke windows.''

We heard this cascade of denial from the other side about these pardons. It was unfathomable that he would do this. It was wrong that he would do this. It was absurd that he would do this. And then he did it.

And what happened? Well, two things happened: One, over 1,000 people who have demonstrated their willingness to commit acts of political violence at the behest of Donald Trump were set loose on the streets. We haven't heard the last of them. There may be another call to arms.

``Will be wild!''

``Be there.''

We haven't heard the last of them.

But just the leading edge, in only the week since we have been there--one has already been arrested for a violent confrontation with police officers, another was killed in a shooting incident when he refused to be arrested and engaged police officers with a weapon, and a third is in Rhode Island in our ACI, our adult correctional institute, for having challenged police officers in an armed standoff. Now, he was in prison when he was pardoned. Nobody in this pardon operation thought to understand that this guy actually was convicted again of violence against police officers and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment in my State.

So we know that there is going to be more violence from these people. We know that Trump now has an on-call assault team that he can use to launch political violence, just the way he did on January 6, and this is a dangerous situation.

This ought to be the easiest vote in the world. How you can even walk through these halls and look our Capitol Police officers in the eye-- the ones who were there, the ones who took their lives in their hands to steer the mob away from vulnerable Senators--how you can look them in the eye if you haven't supported this, I don't know.

There is a word in the English language, ``subservience.'' I think we need a word called ``Trump-servience'' in which things you know you shouldn't do you do anyway because you are either frightened of Trump or want to suck up to him.

This is not a great moment.

There is an effort, frankly, to erase that incident. For a long time: Oh, just peaceful protesters. This was all just, you know, happy people coming in to visit the Capitol, fun and games.

Yeah, so fun that we had Senators running down the aisles to get away from them; so fun that, to get back into this building, we had armed SWAT officers with automatic weapons lining the entire pathway back from where we were secured into this Chamber.

Just remember what our colleagues were saying in that time period, but the effort to erase this moment goes on. It occurred just recently in the Judiciary Committee when the Attorney General nominee said that there had been a peaceful transfer of power, like January 6 never happened.

I asked a question for the record, asked her to explain that. She said: Well, on Inauguration Day, it was peaceful.

Do you remember why it was peaceful on Inauguration Day? Because we had the Capitol of the United States surrounded by more soldiers, more police officers, more fencing, more snipers, more law enforcement and military safety people than had probably been the case since the Civil War. Yet now everything is peaceful.

We cannot forget what happened here. It is wrong to forget what happened here. It is an insult to this Capitol to forget what happened here. It is an insult to the men and women of the Capitol Police Department and the DC Police Department and the others who came in to fill in when they were overwhelmed by these brutal rioters.

So I am glad that Senator Murray did this. I appreciate very much the opportunity to speak on their behalf, both for the sake of those police officers and for the sake of the truth and for the sake of our history here. This deserves to be remembered.

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