Impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin gets emotional recalling daughter trapped by Capitol rioters
For Rep. Jamie Raskin, the impeachment trial is as personal as it gets.
The House Democrat from Maryland choked up on the floor of the Senate while talking about his personal experience in the Capitol on Jan. 6. He had been joined by family members that day — the day after he had buried his son, Thomas, who took his own life on New Year’s Eve.
His daughter, Tabitha and son-in-law were in an office in the Capitol and hid under a desk, where they sent what they thought were their final texts. He says, “They thought they were going to die.”
“Dad, I don’t want to come back to the Capitol,” the 24-year-old algebra teacher told her father.
Separated from them in the House chamber, Raskin described people around him calling to say goodbye to their families, members removing their congressional pins to try to evade detection. And he said he heard the rioters “pounding on the door like a battering ram” — a sound he said he would “never forget.”
He choked up as he recounted his daughter telling him she never wanted to return to the Capitol again.
Through tears, Raskin says, “This cannot be the future of America.”
With News Wire Services
