On the recordMay 19, 2021
Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to speak, but the careful mask of bipartisanship seems to have faltered here at the last, with the majority leader's attacks on the minority leader, who has not spoken, and the minority leader in the Senate for comments he has made in public but not in debate. So what was an image of bipartisan cooperation has now become one more partisan attack. It caused me to believe that it was important to stand up and say this: How can you have a bipartisan commission with an all-Democrat staff? How do you do that? And why is it that there is no willingness to look into all of the riots and the arson and the violence and the burning? If we are concerned about the danger that police officers were in on January 6-- and certainly they were--then why don't we have that concern for the dangers, the violence, the injuries, the deaths that have been faced by police officers across this country? Why is one form of political violence equivalent to 9/11 when a blind eye has been turned by this Congress, or at least by the majority in this Congress, to that same phenomenon across this country for a year? Where is the inquiry into that? When the images are raised, the lurid images of insurrection--let me just say this. If it was an insurrection, it was the worst example of an insurrection in the history of mankind. It was a riot, it was a mob, it was significant, and it was troublesome.…





