On Wednesday, as Congress was counting Electoral College votes, and as some Republicans were trying to claim that the November election was fraudulent, a mob of pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol, committing acts of violence and vandalism and forcing elected representatives to depart. The rioters had been incited by President Trump, who falsely told a rally in Washington that the election was rigged, and that they should head to Congress and give “weak” Republicans “the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
On Wednesday evening, I spoke by phone with Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, who was among those evacuated from the Capitol floor. At the time, Merkley and other senators remained in a secure location, though they were preparing to return to the Senate chamber in order to complete the counting of votes. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed what Merkley had seen that day, the relationships among senators of opposite parties, and whether Democrats should move to impeach and remove Trump from office before January 20th.
Can you tell me about your day, starting when you arrived on Capitol Hill?
Certainly. I came in early in order to do some work before the appointed hour of 12:45 P.M., which is when we had planned to meet to go over to the House to start seeing the official count of the Electoral College votes, and from there forward you know how it unfolded, with an objection to Arizona, followed by debate in the Senate, followed by rioters storming the Capitol.
Going over that more slowly, did you see this day—at the outset—as an important one for American democracy or a pro-forma thing where a dozen senators were just doing a stunt?
I viewed it as a very important, historic day. I wanted to make sure I went over to the House side for the count. The responsibility of Congress is really to witness the count. That is their constitutional responsibility. I had done this before, and it is something most people in America rarely know is going on. But the scene was set for conflict today. It was set for conflict by a President who has preached to the nation that this election was illegitimate, and that he won the election and everyone should do everything they could to stop Joe Biden from being the next President of the United States. He inspired this attempted coup. He essentially weaponized the debate. And we kept getting warnings that there was likely to be violence outside the Capitol.
When did you start getting warnings today, and when did it start getting nerve-wracking?
The warnings were relayed by staff. I normally walk outside from the Senate office buildings to the Capitol, and I particularly make a point to do it when there are protests going on outside to see what is going on. I think it is an important part of America, that people can come and express themselves, and I like to witness that. It should be happening in a republic. It really never occurred to me in any way that that violence would come inside the building. We occasionally have protests inside the building, sometimes in hearing rooms when people unfurl banners or freak out and they have to be ushered out. We sometimes have those in the chamber of the Senate when people from the balconies stand up and start protesting and are escorted out. But in my head I saw all the action taking places outside the Capitol today. The Capitol has been empty because of COVID, and our balconies were empty, and it never occurred to me that people would storm the Capitol.
So the Senate was considering the objections to the electoral vote for Arizona, and we had the initial speech by Mitch McConnell, which is the only time in my life that I could say I completely agreed with the points he was making. I thought he was defending our institution. I often see him in the role of damaging our institutions and damaging the Senate. This time, he stood up for it, and I thought he did a very important presentation, often directing his comments to his Republican side. The exchange went back and forth, with everyone really riveted by the conversation. You never see this in the Senate, everybody listening to one another. And we were about six speeches into that, maybe the seventh speech, with Republican Senator James Lankford speaking, when I heard disruption outside the doors. I thought maybe some protesters were creating a ruckus. And then I heard some more and then I heard some staff look a little bit concerned. And then one of the staff members burst into the chamber, ran up to the podium, had the Vice-President swept away, and he gavelled the gathering to a close as he left. And suddenly we knew this was very different.
Immediately following on that were instructions to leave the chamber. And as soon as everyone started acting on that there were instructions to not leave the chamber. Sit down. Stay here. And then a process proceeded by which there were efforts by the police to secure the chamber and lock the doors and try to make sure people couldn’t break in. And that turned out to be a hard thing to do. People couldn’t find keys. There are a lot of doors to that chamber, and a lot of doors to the balcony, and so forth. So that continued and we were there for some time. I think people were thinking, Are they going to succeed in busting the doors? Do they have weapons? Do they have guns? You are trapped in a room. There is no place to hide. It is a very strange feeling. So I do praise all the police and staff who were working hard to try and protect us and the chamber.
When did everyone decide to leave, and where did you go? And who grabbed the actual electoral votes for safekeeping?
I am not sure how much time passed. We were taking occasional instructions and updates from the dais by different staff, with them explaining why we were waiting there, and saying, “This is the most secure place. Stay here. We are working on other arrangements.” And once they had made those arrangements, and that was maybe a half hour later, it was, “O.K., get out of here and get out of here fast.” They wanted to move us very quickly to a secure location that we were brought to and we remain in. It was like, “Run, go faster,” but you have staircases and things of that nature and people who can’t move too quickly. You really aren’t too sure, but the people who are telling you what to do are telling you to move fast, and it makes the threat very real.
In terms of the staff members who permanently work the floor, and I can’t tell you who exactly it was, but they grabbed the cases [of electoral votes]. Those cases had been brought over to the House chamber, and they carry all the envelopes sealed by the state. And then they have a brand-new case, a third case, that was apparently built this year because there are so many oversized envelopes. And they are wrapped with straps and belts in different directions that make them look valuable and need to be protected. I don’t think they had padlocks, but they are obviously something precious. If they had been left there, I am sure the protesters would have broken those open and burned them and that would have been a symbolic destruction of the voices of Americans in this election. I am so glad they saved those boxes.
What is the attitude right now of Democrats toward Republicans in the Senate?
There is definitely a sense among Democrats that our Republican colleagues have broadly failed the test of leadership, of standing up to President Trump over the last four years when he lied time and time again, and when those lies became more dangerous in the context of this election, as he claimed that the election was not valid, that there was systemic fraud, that he had won himself. By their silence, they conveyed that there was legitimacy in the President’s complaint—legitimacy they knew didn’t exist. But they didn’t have the guts to stand up and address it. It is like a mob being formed on some rumor, and local leaders know the truth but they won’t say it. And then the mob is so strong that they are afraid of it. And then the mob goes with its strong convictions to destroy something, and they say, “Look at all these people who have this belief. We’d better listen to them.” And that’s what these senators were saying today. They were saying that they were objecting because so many Americans have this belief that the elections were corrupted so we need to object to listen to them. So they failed us time and time again.
