When Donald Trump sent out his tweet, he became the first president
ever to call for a crowd to descend on the capital city to block
the constitutional transfer of power.
He set off an explosive chain reaction among his followers. But no
one mobilized more quickly than the dangerous extremists that we've
looked at today.
Seizing upon his invitation to fight they assembled their followers
for an insurrectionary showdown against Congress and the vice president.
On January 6th Trump knew the crowd was angry. He knew the crowd
was armed. He sent them to the capital anyway.
You might imagine that our founders would have been shocked to learn
that an American president would one day come to embrace an excuse
political violence against our own institutions were knowingly sent
an armed mob to attack the capital to usurp the will of the people.
But you know, Mr Chairman, the founders were pretty wise about certain
things in 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. In the very first Federalist
paper, Alexander Hamilton's observed that history teaches that opportunistic
politicians who desire to rule at all costs.
Will begin. First is demagogues pandering to the angry and malignant
passions of the crowd, but then end up as tyrants, trampling the
freedoms and the rights of the people.
Violent insurrection to overturn election is not an abstract thing.
As we've heard, hundreds of people were bloodied, injured and wounded
in the process, including more than 150 police officers.
Some of them sitting in this room today.
I want to give you an update on one officer who was badly wounded
in the attack and is well known to the members of this committee
because he testified before us last year.
Sergeant Aquilino Goodell is an Army veteran who spent a year on
active combat duty in the Rock war and then 16 years on the capital
force.
Nothing he ever saw in combat in Iraq, he has said, prepared him
for the insurrection, where he was savagely beaten, punched, pushed,
kick shove, stomped in sprayed with chemical irritants, along with
other officers by members of the mob, carrying hammers, knives, batons
and police shields taken by force and wielding the American flag.
Against police officers is a dangerous weapon.
Last month On June 28th Sergeant canals team of doctors told him
that permanent injuries he has suffered to his left shoulder and
right foot.
Now make it impossible for him.
To continue as a police officer.
He must leave policing for good.
And figure out the rest of his life.
Sergeant Canal.
We wish you and your family all the best. We are here for you. We
salute you for your valor, Your eloquence and your beautiful commitment
to America.
I wonder what former President Trump would say to someone like Sergeant
Canal who must now go about remaking his life.
I wonder if he could even understand what motivates a Patriot.
Like Sergeant Canal.
In his inaugural address, Trump introduced one commanding image.
American carnage.
Although that turn of phrase explained little about our country before
he took office. It turned out to be an excellent prophecy of what
his rage would come to visit on our people.
Mr. Harris just described how the trust he placed in President Trump.
As a camp follower derailed his life in nearly wrecked
His reputation and his and his family.
A few weeks ago, we heard Shane Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman.
Speaker Rusty Bowers from Arizona and Georgia. Secretary of State
Brad Raffensperger described how heat filled intimidation campaigns
by Trump.
And his followers made them prisoners in their homes and drove their
stress and anxiety to soaring new heights when they refused to do
Trump's bidding.
American carnage. That's Donald Trump's true legacy. His desire to
overthrow the people's election and sees the presidency interrupted
the counting of electoral college votes for the first time in American
history.
Nearly toppled the constitutional order and brutalized hundreds and
hundreds of people.
The Watergate break in was like a Cub Scout meeting compared to this
assault on our people and our institutions.
Mr Chairman. These hearings have been significant for us and for
millions of Americans in our hearing next week will be a profound
moment of reckoning for America. But the crucial thing is the next
step.
What this committee what All of us will do to fortify our democracy
against coups, political violence and campaigns to steal elections
away from the people.
Unlike Mr Ayers and Mr Van Titan Hall of People who have recovered
And evolved from their descent into the hell of fanaticism. Donald
Trump is only expanded his big lie to cover January 6th itself, he
asserts the insurrection was the real election.
In the election was the real insurrection. He says. His mob greeted
our police officers on January 6th with hugs and kisses.
He threatens to take one of America's two major political parties
with him down the road to authoritarianism, and it is Abraham Lincoln's
party no less.
The political scientists tell us that authoritarian parties have
two essential features in common in history and around the world.
They do not accept the results of democratic elections when they
lose.
In the embrace political violence as legitimate.
And the problem of the problem of incitement to political violence
has only grown more serious in the Internet age, as we have just
heard, But this is not the problem of one party. It is the problem
of the whole country now.
American democracy. Mr Chairman is a precious inheritance, something
rare in the history of the world. And even on Earth. Today, constitutional
democracy is the silver frame as Lincoln put it.
Upon which the golden apple of Freedom rests. We need to defend both
our democracy and our freedom with everything we have and declare
that this American carnage.
Ends here and now in a world of resurgent authoritarianism and racism
and anti Semitism, let's all hang tough for American democracy.