“I’m not going to lose my son and my republic”: Jamie Raskin on Trump impeachment | Trump’s impeachment (2021)



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Jamie Raskin, the House Democrat leading the impeachment of Donald Trump, remembered his son Tommy on Sunday and said: “I am not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021. This is not right. happen.”

Tommy Raskin, a Harvard law student who struggled with depression, died on New Years Eve. He was 25.

His father, a constitutional law professor and representative for Maryland, was named senior impeachment officer for Trump’s second Senate trial this week. The president was indicted for the second time for inciting the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, in which five people died, to substantiate his baseless claim that the election was stolen.

Trump’s trial could begin immediately after Joe Biden comes to power on Wednesday. Raskin discussed CNN’s State of the Union impeachment on Sunday. He was also questioned about his son.

“Tommy was a remarkable person,” he says. “He had an overwhelming love for humanity and for our country, in his heart, and truly for all the people of the world. We lost him on the very last day of this terrible year of God, 2020, and he left us a note, which said, “ Please forgive me, my disease has won today, take care for each other, animals and the world’s poor for me, all my love Tommy.

“And it was the last act of a dazzling life.

People wondered, he said, why he had agreed to take on such an important role in the impeachment trial at such a difficult time.

“First of all,” he laughs, “I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to say no to the President. [Nancy] Pelosi on anything. She was actually very sensitive and caring, but she wanted me to do it because she knows that I have dedicated my life to the constitution and the republic. I’m a constitutional law professor, but I really did it with my son in my heart and helping to lead the way. I can feel it in my chest.

“When we went to count the votes of the electoral colleges and [the Capitol] fell under this ridiculous attack, I felt my son with me and I was more concerned about our youngest daughter and son-in-law, who is married to our other daughter, who was with me that day and who takes the floor of the house in a room.

“Between them and I was a rampaging armed mob, who could have killed them easily and knocked on doors where they were hiding under a desk with my Chief of Staff, Julie Tagen.

“These events are personal to me. There has been an attack on our country, there has been an attack on our people.

Asked how he might deal with such a “trauma on top of the trauma,” Raskin said, “I am not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021. It will not happen. .

“And the vast majority of Americans, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, reject armed insurgency and violence as a new way of doing business in America. We are not going to do this.

“It was the most terrible crime ever committed by a President of the United States against our country. And I want everyone to feel the gravity and solemnity of these events at the same time of course we are all deeply invested in President-elect Biden and Vice-President-elect. [Kamala] Harris, move the country forward.

One in four Americans under the age of 25 has considered suicide since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Raskin was asked if he had a message for people with depression, either personally or within their families.

“We don’t want to lose anyone else,” he said. “We have heard from thousands and thousands of people across the country and if any of them are there, thank you for your kindness to our family.

He added that the family had “set up the Tommy Raskin Memorial Fund for People and Animals, which now totals over $ 400,000, his classmates at Harvard Law School have raised $ 5,000 or $ 6,000 for them. causes he believed in continue.

“But we don’t have to wait for people to die for people to listen to them. We can listen to you now. “

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