Mr. President, distinguished Senators, my name is Eric Swalwell, and I represent California's 15th Congressional District. Manager Castro just told you about Donald Trump's lies and acts before the election, but to paraphrase Winston…
Mr. President, distinguished Senators, my name is Eric Swalwell, and I represent California's 15th Congressional District.
Manager Castro just told you about Donald Trump's lies and acts before the election, but to paraphrase Winston Churchill, that wasn't the end of his efforts. That wasn't the beginning of the end, but perhaps it was the end of the beginning. Here is what I mean.
You saw President Trump prime for months his supporters to believe that, if the election were lost, it only could
have been so because it was rigged, but that took time just like, to build a fire, it doesn't just start with the flames. Donald Trump, for months and months, assembled the tinder, the kindling--threw on logs for fuel--to have his supporters believe that the only way their victory would be lost was if it were stolen. So, that way, President Trump was ready, if he lost the election, to light the match.
And on November 7, after all the votes were counted, President Trump did lose by 7 million votes.
But for Donald Trump, all was not lost. He had a backup plan. Instead of accepting the results or pursuing legitimate claims, he told his base more lies. He doused the flames with kerosene.
And this wasn't just some random guy at the neighborhood bar blowing off steam. This was our Commander in Chief.
Day after day, he told his supporters false, outlandish lies that the victory--that the election outcome was taken and it was rigged. And he had absolutely no support for his claims, but that wasn't the point. He wanted to make his base angrier and angrier.
And to make them angry, he was willing to say anything. On November 15, he stated:
I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go. This was a
Shortly after 2 p.m., the Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police were overwhelmed by President Trump's mob. Perimeters were broken. The Capitol had been breached. Those officers kept fighting back for hours and hours to hold th line. They fought to defend the Capitol Building and all of us within it.
But they weren't there just to protect us--and they did--and our staff and the custodial staff and all the people who work so hard in this building. They were there to protect the votes of the American people that were being counted that day. I will show you more later about what that day was like for those brave officers.
But first, let's go back to what was happening where Manager Plaskett left off in the House Chamber. Rioters who had entered the building through the Senate quickly spread out through the Capitol. Many headed toward the House and Senate Chambers. After Speaker Pelosi was ushered out, Chairman McGovern was presiding in the House, attempting to keep the counting process going.
On our phones, Members were receiving security updates and watching social media to see the horror that was going on outside. We never thought it would make its way in.
By 2:25 p.m., rioters who were already in the building opened the east side doors of the Capitol Rotunda to let more of the mob in. They quickly flooded through the doors, overwhelming the officers.
This is new security footage of those doors, and, as before, the mob is identified with the red dot on the model of the Capitol. If you look closely, you will see the first person through the door is holding the Trump flag.
(Video presentation.)
At the same time, just one floor below, the mob finally pushed through a line of Capitol Police officers and overtook the area. We all know that area in the Capitol as the Crypt. This is directly beneath the Rotunda at the very center of the Capitol.
(Text of video presentation.)
(People chanting: ``Open up.'')
The Officer. No harm. No harm.
Inside the House Chamber, a security officer suspended the floor debate to update Members.
(Text of video presentation.)
The Officer. We have a person with tear gas in the Rotunda.
Please stand by. There are masks under your seats. Please
grab a mask. Place it in your lap, and be prepared to don
your mask in the event the room is breached.
We were told there were tear gas masks underneath our seats and to be prepared to grab them.
Determined to keep the count going, Chairman McGovern called the House back into session, but only 4 minutes later, at 2:30 p.m., the House abruptly recessed. A new security announcement was made.
(Text of video presentation.)
The Officer. Be prepared to get down under your chairs, if
necessary. So we have folks entering the Rotunda and coming
down this way. So we will update you as soon as we can, but
just be prepared. Stay calm.
As I heard that announcement on the floor, I saw the new House Chaplain, on just her fourth day on the job, walk to the front podium unannounced, and, amidst the chaos, she started to recite a prayer for peace.
Uncertain what would happen next, I sent a text message to my wife:
I love you and the babies, please hug them for me.
I imagine many of you sent a similar message.
What we could not see from inside the Chamber was that outside, the mob was growing larger and larger and approaching our doors. But we could hear them.
This security footage, which does not have sound, shows a closeup of Trump's mob as they move toward the second floor of the House Chamber to stop the counting of votes.
(Video presentation.)
In the back of the group, you see one individual carrying a ``Stop the Steal'' sign. They get within footsteps of the House door.
The next video is the viewpoint of the insurrectionists. It begins with the mob amassing and cuts ahead to show you their search to the House door.
(Text of video presentation.)
(People chanting: ``We want Trump.'')
Unidentified Man. It's a mob. They're going. Just stop.
Whoa, whoa. Dude, dude, dude, dude--you're not helping.
You're not helping. You are going to get me hurt and other
people.
(People chanting: ``Stop the steal.'')
Unidentified Man. All right, no violence.
Unidentified Man. It's too late for that. They don't listen
without that stuff.
(People chanting: ``Stop the steal.'')
Those doors, to orient you at home, are the doors that the President of the United States walks through when he or she gives the State of the Union Address.
You may have heard one man yell ``no violence'' and another respond:
It's too late for that. They don't listen without that.
They were there to stop the certification of the election.
At this point, inside the House Chamber, we can now hear the pounding on the doors. At 2:35 p.m., Members on the House floor were told that an evacuation route was secure, and it was time to leave. This video shows Members of Congress exiting to the side of the podium where we would go through the House Lobby and downstairs.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Because of coronavirus restrictions, congressional Members had been waiting in the Gallery for their time to speak, just one level above the House floor. Representatives, staff, journalists all took cover under their chairs, helped each other put on their gas masks, and held hands as rioters gathered outside.
Here, on this slide, you see Representative Jason Crow comforting our colleague Representative Susan Wild.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
The rioters continued to surround the House Chamber, flooding the halls and kicking on the doors as they passed them.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
This security video shows Ashli Babbitt, followed by others in the mob, turning the corner to the House Lobby doors where the Members were leaving.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Chairman McGovern was one of the last Members to leave the floor. As he left through the House Lobby, just after 2:40 p.m., he was spotted by the mob.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Minutes later, at 2:44 p.m., Ashli Babbitt attempted to climb through a shattered window into the House Lobby. To protect the Members in the Lobby, an officer discharged his weapon, and she was killed. I want to warn everyone that the next video, which shows her death, is graphic.
(Text of video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
He has a gun! He has a gun! He's got a gun!
Inside the Chamber, Representatives, staff, and journalists remained trapped in the Gallery, one floor above the House floor, and heard the gunshot. My colleague Representative Dan Kildee produced this recording.
(Text of video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
What the fuck? Take your pins off. Pins off!
Out of fear that they would be seen or taken by the mob, my colleagues were telling each other to take off their congressional pins. That buzzing sound that you hear in the background of these videos was the sound of the gas masks.
It was not until approximately 2:50 p.m., about 6 minutes after the shooting downstairs, that the remaining Members, staff, and journalists in the Gallery were finally able to flee.
In this security footage video, you can see them exiting. Many Members are still wearing their gas masks. They walk just feet away from where the Capitol Police are holding an insurrectionist at gunpoint. Just minutes earlier, that insurrectionist had tried to open the Gallery door and, thankfully, was stopped by a tactical team.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Although Members were now being moved to another location, the mob continued to fight--to stop the count, to find the Members, to engage with the police. The building was not yet secure.
This security video from 2:56 p.m. shows the mob in the House of Representatives' wing on the second floor of the Capitol. Insurrectionists who are still inside the building are fighting with the police, who are overwhelmed in trying to get them out.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Throughout this presentation, we have been very careful to not share where Members of Congress were taken or the paths they followed to get out and off the floor, but that very issue was under discussion by the insurrectionists themselves. One example comes from an FBI affidavit, which stated that a leader of a militia group known as the Oath Keepers received messages while he was at the Capitol. The leader was given directions to where Representatives were thought to be sheltering and instructions to ``turn on gas; seal them in.''
As you know, the threat to the Senate was no less than that of the Members of the House. The mob approached the Senate with the same purpose: fulfilling President Trump's goal of stopping the count; delaying the certification of the electoral college votes of the American people.
As you heard from Manager Plaskett, Vice President Pence was moved away from the area near the Senate Chamber at around 2:25 p.m. By that time, rioters had breached several areas close to this Chamber, and they were flooding the hallways just outside an nearby. The Senate Chamber was not evacuated until 2:30 p.m. The mob had been in the building for more than 15 minutes.
This new security footage of the Senators and staff leaving the Chamber will be displayed on the screens. It is silent.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
You cannot see it in this footage, but quick-thinking Senate floor staff grabbed and protected the electoral ballots that the mob was after.
Those of you who were here that day will recall that, once you left the Senate floor, you moved through a hallway to get to safety. That hallway was near where Officer Goodman had encountered a mob and led them upstairs and away from the Senate Chamber. You know how close you came to the mob. Some of you, I understand, could hear them, but most of the public does not know how close these rioters came to you. As you were moving through that hallway--I paced it off--you were just 58 steps away from where the mob was amassing and where police were rushing to stop them. They were yelling.
In this security video, you can see how the Capitol Police created a line and blocked the hallway with their bodies to prevent rioters at the end of the hall from reaching you and your staff.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Because this is security footage that you have not seen before, I want to play it again. The top of the screen is the other end of that hallway where the mob has amassed and the officers are rushing to protect you.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Additional security footage shows how Leader Schumer and the members of his protective detail had a near miss with the mob. They came within just yards of rioters and had to turn around. Here, in this new video, you see Leader Schumer walking up a ramp. In going up the ramp with his detail, he will soon go out of view.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Seconds later, they return and run back down the hallway, and officers immediately shut the door and use their bodies to keep them safe.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
At 2:45 p.m., shortly after Senators were ushered to safety from the Senate floor, insurrectionists reached the Senate Galleries. The following video was filmed by a New Yorker reporter.
(Text of video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Where the fuck are they? We're here.
Minutes later, the insurrectionists invaded and desecrated the Senate floor. These vandals shouted and rifled through the desks of this room. They took pictures of documents and of
themselves, celebrating that they had taken over the floor and stopped the counting of the electoral college votes.
(Text of video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Unidentified Speaker. Look at this. Take a picture.
Unidentified Speaker. Here. Look. Ted Cruz's objections. He
was going to sell us out all along.
Unidentified Speaker. Really?
Unidentified Speaker. Objection to counting the electoral
votes of the State of Arizona.
Unidentified Speaker. All right. All right. There's got to
be something in here we can use against these scum bags.
Unidentified Speaker. What happened to the phone, man?
Larry Brock, who was arrested for his role in the insurrection, was photographed on the Senate floor, wearing a helmet, tactical gear, and carrying flex cuffs.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
This man, also in the Senate Galleries, is Eric Munchel. Like Brock, he was dressed in what appears to be tactical gear, also holding up flex cuffs.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
If the doors to this Chamber had been breached just minutes earlier, imagine what they could have done with those cuffs.
After insurrectionists occupied the Capitol and stopped the joint session from counting the votes, the Capitol was in lockdown for 5 hours.
As long as it took to get back to the Capitol, to get back to the certification of the election, it could have been so much longer, or we might not have been able to resume at all. As horrific as it was--140 officers injured, 3 officers who ultimately lost their lives--we all know that awful day could have been so much worse. The only reason it was not was because of the extraordinary bravery of the men and women of the Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Departments. For hours and hours, these insurrectionists were in hand-to-hand combat with these brave men and women.
Like some of you, I come from a law enforcement family. My dad was a cop. My two brothers--my little brothers are cops who walk the beat today. I am proud of them. And like in every law enforcement family, when we hang up the phone, we don't only say ``I love you,'' we say ``Be safe.''
So let's focus now on the attack and what it was like for the officers defending the Capitol that day. And, again, I want to warn you that the following audio and videos are graphic and are unsettling, but it is important that we understand the extent of what occurred.
Here is an audio recording from the radio traffic of the DC Metropolitan Police Department describing the violence.
(Text of audio presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Cruiser 50, I copy. We're still talking rocks, bottles, and
pieces of flag and metal pole.
Cruiser 50, the crowd is using munitions against us. They
have bear spray in the crowd. Bear spray in the crowd.
1328.
Multiple deployments U.S. Capitol with pepper spray.
DSO, DSO, I need a re-up. I need a re-up up here.
You hear the officer describe they are ``using munitions''--they, the rioters, are ``using munitions against us.''
This video shows how the sprays that were described were used against the officers.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
In a separate Metropolitan Police Department radio traffic recording, you can hear an officer when he realizes that the insurrectionists had overtaken the police line.
(Text of audio presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Cruiser 50. We lost the line. We've lost the line. All MPD,
pull back. All MPD, pull back up to the upper deck. All MPD,
pull back to the upper deck ASAP. All MPD, come back to the
upper deck. Upper deck. Cruiser 50, we're flanked. 10-33. I
repeat 10-33 west front of the Capitol. We have been flanked
and we've lost the line.
The MPD officer calls out ``10-33.'' That is the code for emergency, officer in need of assistance; his words, ``We've lost the line.''
Hours after Members of the House and Senate had left this area on the west front of the building, the mob continued to grow, continued to beat the officers, as they tried to get in.
In this new security video, you can see the mob attacking officers with a crutch, a hockey stick, a bull horn, and a Trump flag.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
I want to show you that same attack from the officer's perspective, from his body camera footage.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
This body camera footage is from 4:27 p.m., over 2 hours from when the Capitol was first breached. The attack on police that afternoon was constant.
Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, a 20-year police veteran with four daughters, was part of a line of officers protecting the Capitol. He was one of three officers whom the mob dragged down the stairs. When they dragged him, they stole his badge, his radio, his ammunition magazine, and they tased him, triggered a heart attack.
Here he describes his experience.
(Text of video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Officer Fanone. It looked like a medieval battle scene. It
was some of the most brutal combat, you know, I have ever--
ever encountered. At one point I got tased. People were
yelling at me, `We got one. We got one.'
Officer Christina Laury, who regularly serves in MPD's Narcotics and Specialized Investigation Division, also protected the front Capitol entrance. Here is her experience.
(Text of video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Officer Laury. I mean, I can't say enough about the
officers that were there, the officers that were on the
frontline. And when I say `the frontline,' I mean, literally,
officers that were in a line, stopping these people that were
beating them with metal poles. They were spraying them with
bear mace. I mean, they did everything in their power to not
let those people in. And this was going on for hours.
Around 4:30 p.m., hours into the Capitol riots, Officer Daniel Hodges was protecting a west side Capitol entrance, when rioters who were trying to stop the certification trapped him between two doors.
When Officer Hodges was interviewed later, this is how he described what was happening.
(Text of video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Officer Hodges. They threw down a huge metal object that
hit me on the head. I was also knocked down. The medical mask
I was wearing at the time got pulled up over my eyes, so I
was on the ground and blinded, and they started attacking me
from all sides.
Rioters crushed Officer Hodges. He was wedged in the doorway, blood dripping from his mouth. He was struggling to breathe, all while the insurrectionists hit him.
Officer Hodges' experience reminds you of what he and many other officers experienced that day, what they went through.
We are also reminded of three officers who lost their lives: Capitol Hill Police Officers Sicknick, Liebengood, and Metropolitan Police Officer Smith.
In many law enforcement families, we pray for our loved ones, and we know the scripture of Matthew 5:9, ``Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.''
I am sorry I have to show you the next video, but in it you will see how blessed we were that on that hellish day, we had a peacemaker like Officer Hodges protecting our lives, our staffs' lives, this Capitol, and the certification process.
May we do all we can in this Chamber to make sure that never happens again.
(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)
Recess