And a lot of the extremist, right-wing websites were calling for a return engagement on Inauguration Day, you know? They were claiming, as they continue to claim, that the presidential election was invalid and that Donald Trump had really won.Īnd so there were lots of reports and rumors about other efforts at violence that might be underway. And most of these people were still in Washington. And several other officers took their lives in response to the violence that had taken place. And Officer Sicknick, of course, died the day after. There were the bombs that were found at the DNC and the RNC and, of course, the bloody violence that took place on that day when several people died. But they had reason to be concerned about what was going on in Washington because, remember, there were tens of thousands of people who had shown up. RASKIN: Well, one thing I told them was that in a way, I would be safer as an impeachment manager because the impeachment managers would have protection during the course of the trial. How did you overcome in your mind their concern about your safety? So many people who opposed Trump end up with death threats against them. GROSS: Your family was worried about you accepting the position because they thought your life might be in jeopardy. So I was forced to galvanize all of my love for Tommy and my daughters, Hannah and Tabitha, and my wife, Sarah, and our family and our country, and to throw myself into the trial to make the case that Donald Trump had incited this violent insurrection and effort to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. And he had - Speaker Pelosi, I see in hindsight, threw me a lifeline because she reached out to me. And that pretty well captures my state of mind at the time. And I was just repeating over and over, I've lost my son. When we lost Tommy on December 31 of 2020, my chief of staff, Julie Tagen, who came over to the house, said that, you know, just for hours I just sat in one seat. JAMIE RASKIN: Well, I wasn't sure whether I was ever going to be able to do anything again. But the assignment became, paradoxically, a salvation and sustenance for me, a pathway back to the land of the living. You know, about accepting the position of lead manager of the impeachment trial, you write, it was the hardest thing I've ever been asked to do professionally at the most difficult time I have ever experienced personally. And I want to tell you what I told you before the interview, which is that your book really made me wish I knew him. Our interview was recorded yesterday morning.Ĭongressman Raskin, welcome to FRESH AIR. Prior to serving in the House of Representatives, Raskin served three terms in the Maryland state Senate. Getting back to my question, how did he manage to get through this work after his son's death? He tries to explain how and why in his new memoir "Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth And The Trials Of American Democracy." The book is about what he describes as the two impossible traumas that he will probably spend the rest of his life trying to disentangle and understand, the death of his son and the insurrection. Now he's a member of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack, the events leading up to it and the people behind it. He had been a professor of constitutional law at the American University Washington College of Law before entering politics. Tabitha and Hank hid in the office of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer under Hoyer's desk, afraid they were going to die.Īfter the insurrection, at the request of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Congressman Raskin served as the lead manager in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. They were not expecting a violent mob to storm the Capitol, trying to overturn the election results. They didn't want him to be alone that day. His daughter, Tabitha, and his other daughter's husband, Hank, went along with him. Despite Raskin's grief, he showed up at the Capitol the next day to do his constitutional duty and certify the election. When I watched my guest, Congressman Jamie Raskin, give his closing remarks at Donald Trump's second impeachment trial in the Senate, I wondered, how is he managing to get through this? His 25-year-old son, Tommy, who had been suffering with mental illness, had died by suicide December 31, 2020.
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