PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Two years ago, a violent mob violently breached security in the U.S. Capitol during a joint session of Congress to affirm the results of the 2020 presidential election. Jan. 6 is a date many Americans will never forget. Area members of Congress shared their memories of the day with KYW Newsradio.
Pictures of New Jersey Congressman Andy Kim kneeling on the floor of the Capitol rotunda were shared far and wide. He stuck around after the dust settled to help clean up the mess left behind.
Kim says the rotunda is the most beautiful room in the most beautiful building in the country.
“To see such sacred ground defiled in that way was painful. It just really pained me,” Kim said. “I wasn’t planning on cleaning up. I actually walked out of the Capitol, out of the rotunda, a couple of steps but just felt compelled to come back in.
Related
“I saw a couple of police officers that were eating pizza on the side, and they were throwing boxes away in a garbage bag. So I just went up to them and asked them if they had any other garbage bags and asked them if there was any problem if I started cleaning up.”
Kim says he thinks about what happened every time he walks through the door, as many others do, and he says some of his colleagues don’t want to be there for the anniversary because the emotions are still too strong.
Montgomery County Congresswoman Madeleine Dean says she had told her staff to stay home that day out of concerns for their safety.
“I remember being excited that we were going to participate in this constitutional obligation, this moment,” she said, “but also being nervous, thinking there might be some upset outside.”
She was in the gallery “when all hell broke loose,” she said.
“It's chilling, to this moment. It is hard to believe that happened in this very place. But as we stood there, we were first warned: 'Please sit down.' Then: 'Please lie down, prepare to lie down.'”
“I remember so vividly crouching in the gallery of the House,” said Rep. Mikie Sherrill of North Jersey.
“I often tell friends now, if you see the Secret Service come and grab the speaker of the House, that's a good time to leave the floor of the House. But we didn't. We were in the gallery. We were hoping we could certify our elections, as was our constitutional duty.”
Rep. Brendan Boyle of Philadelphia was in his office when the mob struck.
“We were literally picking up and moving my couch in order to put it right by the front door to make it more difficult for anyone to break in and get inside,” he said.
Back in the gallery, as Dean was lying on the floor, she said, members of Congress were instructed to take their gas masks out from under their seats.
Related
“I had no idea there were gas masks under our seats,” she said. “And then they told us to please put the gas masks on. There's been an infiltration of the rotunda. Tear gas was deployed.”
Dean was fumbling with the wrapper on the gas mask when she heard for herself the first signs of the mob outside.
“We heard the horrible banging on the doors, center doors, and the breaking of the glass. We were whisked out — with no plan. Frankly, we didn't know where we were going. We were whisked across the gallery, down a staircase to a very vulnerable spot, and then finally to a safe room.”
Related
Sherrill said she had two thoughts in her mind as she held a gas mask in one hand and her cell phone in the other, poised to call family in case she failed to make it out of the gallery.
“On one side, I had this great sense of sorrow, that it had come to this, that our nation was so divided, that people who were misled … veterans on both sides of sides of those doors would come and attack our Capitol,” she said.
“And then the other side of my brain had really a sense of rage. ‘How dare they! How dare they!’”
Related
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Chester County said, at its root, the capitol insurrection represented a relatively small group’s outsized disrespect of American democracy.
“While the individuals who descended upon and disrespected the storied halls represent a very small fringe faction of the population, it is no secret that they were inspired by some of the most senior officials in our government — who failed to accept the results of the 2020 election,” she said.
Boyle said the lesson from that day should be that Americans should never take that democracy for granted.
“There is no protection for our democracy other than the American people,” he said. “No law is going to protect us if enough Americans want to destroy our democracy, if they actually want to end the peaceful transfer of power.”
Dean said everyone should be made to remember that day.
Related
“When we came in that next day or late at night, and saw the broken, smashed multi-pane glass and shards of wood and blood — and feces, frankly — on the ground,” she said. “I hope … that historians of the House have saved some of those broken things, and should replace them somewhere as a permanent reminder of how fragile our democracy is — so that we never live that again.”
According to a U.S. Department of Justice database, nearly 1,000 people involved in the riot have been charged. Hundreds of those cases have been adjudicated.
Following their investigation, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol has referred criminal charges against former President Donald Trump to the Justice Department, as well.