“This trial has a personal dimension,” he said, barely holding back his sobs. “I hope he reminds America how much of a personal matter democracy is.”
The elected representative of the House of Representatives buried his 25-year-old son on 5 January who, suffering from depression, had committed suicide a few days earlier.
The next day, he had invited his youngest daughter, and the husband of her eldest child, who wanted to stay with him “during this upsetting week” to accompany him to Congress, where he was to participate in the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election.
When supporters of Donald Trump burst onto Capitol Hill, they were separated. “My kids hid under a desk to send their last texts and whisper their farewells over the phone. They thought they were going to die,” he said.
When Jamie Raskin found them, he apologized and promised his daughter it would be different the next time she came to Congress. “She said ‘Daddy I never want to come back’. Of all the brutal things I saw and heard that day, this is what hurt me the most,” he said. he confided, in tears.
“That, and seeing someone use an American flag to hit a ruthless cop.”
“People died, agents were left with head traumas,” he said, imploring senators to draw the consequences and condemn Donald Trump for “inciting an insurgency”. (
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