Patrick Leahy: “these are among the most somber and sorrowful remarks that I have had to make as President pro tempore and also my…”

“these are among the most somber and sorrowful remarks that I have had to make as President pro tempore and also my several decades of service in this body. What an unthinkable event it is that we are marking today--an attempted coup incited not against a President but by a President, who promoted and still promotes a litany of lies to overturn the results of the election in order for him to hold on to power that he no longer possesses. We are in the business of words, but there are none to adequately capture the damage that he and his henchmen have done and are doing to our country. I am certain that no one serving here ever thought such an attack on our democracy by a violent insurrectionist mob who stormed the Capitol--the very citadel of our democracy--could ever happen in our beloved country, the world's most enduring democracy. This very Chamber where we are gathered today was breached. It was desecrated as was the rest of the Capitol. This morning, in my capacity as President pro tempore, I called the Senate into session. As I looked around the Chamber, so many memories came to mind. I first saw this Senate Chamber as a teenager, visiting from our home in Montpelier, VT, with my parents and my sister, coming to this Capitol. And then later as a Georgetown law student, I would sit in the Visitors' Gallery and just watch.…”