Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md. gave a closing statement on July 12 as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack presented its findings to the public. The focus of the hearing was on extremist far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and the role they played in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
Raskin invoked the Founding Fathers in his closing statement, saying that at the start of the Republic, “They actually warned everyone about Donald Trump. Not by name, of course, but in the course of advising about the certain prospect that ambitious politicians would try to mobilize violent mobs to tear down our own institutions in service of their insatiable ambitions.”
“On January 6th, Trump knew the crowd was angry. He knew the crowd was armed. He sent them to the Capitol anyway. You might imagine that our founders would have been shocked to learn that an American president would one day come to embrace and excuse political violence against our own institutions, or knowingly sent an armed mob to attack the capital to usurp the will of the people,” Raskin said.
Raskin said more than 150 police officers were bloodied, injured and wounded in the Jan. 6 attack, including one officer who was permanently injured and has to leave his career in law enforcement because of it. Raskin called on the American people to take lessons learned after the Jan. 6 insurrection and push against the idea of authoritarianism and instead work to defend democracy.
In the year since its creation, the committee has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, seeking critical information and documents from people witness to, or involved in, the violence that day.
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