On the recordFebruary 1, 2021
on another matter to bring to our leaders, you know, I first came to this Capitol when I was a teenager with my parents. We came down from Vermont. I remember looking around and walking through it, thinking what a privilege it was just to walk here. And then, during my years at Georgetown Law School, I would come here often just to see it, just to watch it, and to walk up the Mall and look at the Capitol and say: That is democracy. I never thought I would work here, but I have now for a number of years. I found the assault on and the defilement of the U.S. Capitol mere weeks ago was an attack on the bedrock of our democratic institutions right here in the citadel of our democracy. The toll that this insurrection has taken and will take on our great Nation will be felt for so long. In addition to the physical damage done, there is a human toll that this attack has taken on the lives lost and the injuries suffered by so many brave officers of the Capitol Police. I was both in this Chamber and in the House Chamber during the time this attack unfolded. The next morning, I recorded some of the lingering physical damage to this building in several photographs that I made. But the attack also is about things you can't photograph, the unseen scars in the Capitol community--the staff members and the Capitol employees who work every day to help make our Capitol Building function as it needs to function. Most Members of Congress were also roiled by this attack.…
