Congressman Cohen Questions Witnesses and Testifies at a Hearing on the Fifth Anniversary of the Attack on the U.S. Capitol

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-9), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee who was in House Chamber when insurrectionists attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, questioned expert witnesses and then testified about his experience that day at a special hearing on the fifth anniversary of that violent attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power. The hearing focused on the “big lie” of a stolen 2020 election and President Trump’s central role in the attempted coup, including bringing the mob to Washington and inciting it to violence.

The four-and-a-half-hour hearing established that at least 140 law enforcement officers were injured in the attack and that the Capitol itself sustained $29 million in damage. Before questioning a panel that included a former U.S. Capitol Police officer, a federal prosecutor who pursued charges against the insurrectionists but resigned after Trump pardoned them all on his first day in office, an academic expert on misinformation, and a grandmother who accepted her prosecution and acknowledged her guilt as a rioter and refused Trump’s pardon, Congressman Cohen said:

“We should never forget this day. This, like Pearl Harbor, is a day that will live in infamy.”

See the congressman’s line of questioning here.

When he testified as a witness, Congressman Cohen described retreating from the House Gallery where he’d been observing the Electoral College vote count as the mop descended and passing police officers, with guns drawn, on his way back to his vacant House office. He said he locked the doors and prepared for what might come by arming himself with a commemorative Chicago White Sox Minnie Minoso baseball bat.

“We must never forget this day, and I won’t,” he said.

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