Senator Dick Durbin Responds To My Letter RE: Trump Insurrectionist Attack On January 6th.
February 10, 2021 Mr. William Rosen Dear Mr. Rosen: Thank you for contacting me about the attack on the U.S. Capitol that occurred on January 6 and former President Donald Trump's role in inciting that attack. I appreciate hearing from you. Former President Trump lost the 2020 election. For weeks afterward, he spread baseless conspiracy theories that the election was stolen from him. Americans cast more than 155 million ballots to elect our nation's next commander in chief and President Biden and Vice President Harris won a clear, historic, and decisive victory at the ballot box, securing 306 Electoral College votes and more than 81 million individual votes. Just days before the Capitol was attacked, a recording was released of then-President Trump pressuring Georgia's Secretary of State to "find" 11,780 votes for him in order to overturn Georgia’s election results. The day after that phone call occurred, then-President Trump reportedly spoke with Department of Justice officials about replacing the acting Attorney General with another DOJ official who supported then-President Trump On January 6, then-President Trump held a rally outside the White House while a joint session of Congress was meeting to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. Then-President Trump told attendees at the rally that they should "stop the steal" and claimed that certifying President Biden's victory would make him "an illegitimate president". He told attendees “if you don’t fight like hell, we won’t have a country anymore” and then told attendees “we’re going to the Capitol” to "try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country". For the sake of our democracy, we must be clear-eyed and honest about what transpired that day at the Capitol building. Then-President Trump instigated a domestic terror attack against our nation's legislature in an attempt to overturn the results of an election that he lost. In the ensuing mayhem, five individuals lost their lives, including United States Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick. I thank the brave men and women of the U.S. Capitol Police, the D.C. Metropolitan Police, the National Guard, and the numerous additional law enforcement agencies who put themselves in the line of danger to protect the elected officials and staff in the Capitol. However, it is clear that an appalling failure of leadership occurred at the uppermost ranks of the law enforcement agencies responsible for protecting the Capitol. The last time the Capitol was attacked in such a manner was during the Burning of Washington in the midst of a British invasion during the War of 1812. The bedrock of our democracy is the peaceful transition of power. The preservation of our democracy relies on elected officials acknowledging when they lose and allowing their duly-elected successors to ascend to power. President Trump's refusal to accept his loss undermined the faith of millions of Americans in the electoral process in this country. His actions, including his incitement of an insurrection on January 6, caused irreparable harm to our institutions of democracy. I called for then-President Trump's removal from office by members of his Cabinet invoking the 25th Amendment, or, if they failed to do so, for the President to be impeached. I did not make this statement lightly. The House of Representatives has the Constitutional authority to determine whether to impeach and to draft articles of impeachment. Once the House has voted to impeach an official and has specified the grounds upon which the impeachment is based, the matter is then presented to the Senate for trial. On January 13, 2021, the House of Representatives voted to impeach then-President Trump for the incitement of insurrection against the U.S. Government by a bipartisan vote of 232-197. This represents the first time in our nation's history that a president has been impeached twice. In the coming days, the Senate will undertake its constitutional responsibility to hold a trial on the article of impeachment and determine whether to disqualify Donald Trump from holding elected office again. I look forward to hearing from you in the future. Please feel free to keep in touch.
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Sincerely, Richard J. Durbin United States Senator | |
RJD/cr | |
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