The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“January 6 Select Committee (Executive Session)” mentioning Patrick J. Leahy was published in the Senate section on pages S5119-S5120 on July 28.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
January 6 Select Committee
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, yesterday, Congressman Bennie Thompson called to order the first hearing of the special committee that most of our Republican colleagues have tried to block, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
It continues to amaze me that an independent, bipartisan committee to investigate the worst assault on our democracy since the War of 1812, an assault that left one police officer dead and more than 140 injured, was filibustered and stopped in its tracks by the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell.
That is exactly what he did. He tried to conceal the truth about what happened on January 6. He tried to hide it from the American people and to do this without police officers in this building noticing, many of whom risked their lives on that day. Well, we saw yesterday that he failed. Senator McConnell failed to stop the investigation. We are going to learn what happened on January 6, despite his effort to stop it.
During the first hearing of the select committee yesterday, we heard testimony from four police officers who battled the mob for hours on January 6. Many of us witnessed it. Two members of the Capitol Police Force and two from the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, DC, testified. These officers were brutalized in hand-to-hand combat. Some thought they were going to die. And they are still grappling with the physical and emotional trauma they suffered.
Officer Harry Dunn recounted yesterday how the mob of the former President's supporters chanted the N-word in his face.
Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone testified that members of the mob attempted to steal his service weapon and kill him with it. He was dragged into the mob, tasered repeatedly, and beaten unconscious. He suffered a heart attack and a traumatic brain injury. This is what Officer Fanone said yesterday: ``My fellow citizens, including so many of the people I put my life at risk to defend, are downplaying or outright denying what happened. I feel like I went to hell'' he said,
``and [came] back to protect them and the people in this room. But too many are now telling me that hell doesn't exist or that hell wasn't exactly that bad.''
Is that how we are going to treat police officers in the Capitol? I ask that of the Senators and the House Members.
They risk their lives every day to defend us, to defend this building, to defend what it stands for. Instead of thanking them, are some of my colleagues going to deny the brutality that they faced? That cannot be. These brave officers deserve better. At the very least, they deserve that the truth be told.
One of the most searing images from January 6 was that of a police officer screaming in agony as he was pinned against the metal door and beaten by this insurrectionist mob.
Yesterday, that man, Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, told the select committee: ``There can be no moving on without accountability. There can be no healing without making sure this will never happen again.''
To all of the police officers who held the line on January 6, let me say clearly: You defended the American democracy. You didn't just defend this building and the Members of Congress. And if not for your heroism and sacrifice, the terrible toll of that day would have been far worse. Take solace in the fact that you did your duty.
But there are Members of the Senate and the House who are failing to do theirs. Right now, this Senate has a chance to finally do right by our police officers.
Yesterday, Chairman Leahy and Vice Chairman Shelby announced a bipartisan $2.1 billion security supplemental funding package that will not only pay the salaries of our Capitol Police officers, it will increase security at the Capitol. It will reimburse the National Guardsmen who were deployed to defend this building after January 6--a great sacrifice.
That package would also provide relief to another group of heroes who risked their lives for America and who did so on foreign soil: our civilian partners in Afghanistan. This package would provide an additional 8,000 special immigrant visas to Afghan interpreters who supported our diplomats and troops on the frontlines of America's longest war.
As we begin to finally bring our troops home from Afghanistan, let's not forget the heroes who supported them and risked their lives to help them. Many of these individuals and their families are no longer safe if the Taliban takes control. We need to give them a new home in America. I am glad this bill provides the means to do so.
I thank Senator Leahy for leading the negotiations. I hope every Senator will support it.
Yesterday, Officer Harry Dunn told the Select Committee about the anxiety he and other officers felt when the remaining security fence around the Capitol was taken down, but little else has been done to protect this building from another mob insurrection.
Officer Dunn said: ``When that fence came down--when we lost that last layer of protection--that was hard. . . . The fence came down and still nothing has changed. Everything is different, but still nothing has changed.''
This is the time to show the officers who protected us and the world that when you defend America in our time of need, we will stand by you. I urge all my colleagues to support the security supplemental bill. It is the least that we can do.
Mr. President, there is one other thing I would like to say. It is just too close to call. I thought about it long and hard, and it is just too close to call.
In an effort to plumb the depths of political meanness and irresponsibility, it is just hard to choose between Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham. First, they became our Nation's leading anti-vax quacks, making their specious arguments against lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines and sowing doubt among their viewers, who were literally putting their lives at risk because of the lies that these two individuals are spouting. And now--and now--they are creating a braying chorus focused on defaming the police who defended this building on January 6.
Their mockery of the bravery of the Capitol and DC police, who risked and some lost their lives on the January 6 attack on the Capitol Building, is cowardly and shameful.
It took courage for the police to face the Trump mob. It takes no courage for these FOX talking-heads to belittle these officers. It takes no courage to practice their well-worn smirks reacting to the bravery of these policemen.
It is hard to imagine reading a press account of what they said yesterday and last night about the hearing that took place, the things that they did. Ingraham gave the ``best performance in an action role'' to Washington Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who, during the testimony, recalled fearing he would be shot with his own gun.
Ingraham said: ``Well, there was certainly a lot of violence that day, but it was not a terrorist attack. It wasn't 9/11. It wasn't the worst thing that ever happened to America. It wasn't an insurrection.''
And then Tucker Carlson responded with a smirk to the footage of Fanone telling the hearing he had experienced post-traumatic stress disorder.
Throughout the monologue, Carlson piled onto his previous claims about the violence just being a ``political protest that got out of hand.''
First the vaccines and now defaming the police--this is irresponsible from start to finish. I would ask those at FOX network, not exactly my friends and allies in politics, to show common decency and common sense--common sense when it comes to these vaccines, which we know if more people were vaccinated we wouldn't be facing this resurgent need for masks and fear of this new variant. And common decency when it comes to the men and women in uniform when it comes to risking their lives for this Capitol, this democracy, and this government. Certainly, there is freedom of speech, but let's hope that good sense will dominate this discussion over at the FOX network as to whether these two ought to be allowed to continue their rant.
I yield the floor
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, it is my understanding that prior to my remarks on the floor, we were going to recognize the Senator from Minnesota for 10 minutes or so. So if that is still desired by the Senator from Minnesota, I would be glad to yield.
And since the Senator from Minnesota is not present, I will go ahead and make my remarks.
I do ask unanimous consent that I be recognized as if in morning business for such time as I shall consume.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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