Tabitha texted that she was hiding under Hoyer’s desk. Steny Hoyer’s office, along with his campaign manager, Julie Tagen. Raskin was particularly worried about Tabitha and Hank, who had left the visitors’ gallery and hunkered down in Rep. Every time this happened, the members “broke into a healthy trot pretty impressive for middle-aged politicians.” One member who had trouble walking was pushed in a wheeled office chair.Īs they fled, people made frantic calls to their families. Periodically, Raskin writes, members glimpsed rioters who were likewise wandering through the halls. “Looks like we’re under new management,” he said.Īs rioters pounded like a “battering ram” on the chamber’s door, police led members in an improvised evacuation through the building’s basement. Paul Gosar, an Arizona Republican known for spreading misinformation about election fraud, got up to speak, a Democratic member (Raskin declines to name names) shouted, “Call off your stormtroopers!” Other members shouted for colleagues to don gas masks and remove the congressional pins that would mark them as targets.Īmid the confusion, someone texted Raskin the now-infamous photo of a rioter carrying a Confederate flag through the Rotunda, which he showed to colleague Rep. The remaining members tried to keep the session going, but things didn’t exactly go according to plan - when Rep.
Soon, as members received text alerts warning them to shelter in place, security teams whisked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other senior officials out of the room. She’d seen on the news that protestors had stormed the Capitol, and wanted to know if he was OK. The session continued as danger mounted outside.Īs arguments proceeded, Raskin got an anxious text from Alyssa Milano, an actress and political organizer who had become a family friend. When he greeted his colleagues and thanked them for the “love and tenderness” they’d shown in the wake of Tommy’s death, he was given a bipartisan standing ovation.
Tabitha and Hank watched from the House visitor’s galley as Raskin delivered his prepared remarks. “Dad, you’ve got to tone this down,” she chided him.Īfter the joint congressional session began, several House Republicans posed the anticipated objections. When he finished a draft, he handed it over to Tabitha, who immediately started crossing out some of his more fiery adjectives. Raskin spent his morning preparing the speeches he’d been asked to give in response to the probable objections. Ultimately, Tabitha and Raskin’s son-in-law, Hank, decided to accompany him. The process was supposed to be a formality, but with Republicans expected to object to the certification it was shaping up to be a real battle. But Raskin felt he had to - this was the day that a joint congressional session would count and certify the 2020 Electoral College votes.
#Tabitha raskin full
6 was Raskin’s first full day at work after Tommy’s death, and his daughter Tabitha initially encouraged her father not to go in. Jamie Raskin writes of losing his son to suicide and living through the Jan. Ahead of the insurrection’s first anniversary, here’s what the memoir tells us about one representative’s experience. That focus makes sense - an early advocate for investigation and impeachment, Raskin clearly understood the importance of establishing a clear and accurate public narrative of the events of Jan. It’s most fascinating for its minutely detailed account of the insurrection. “If a person can grow through unthinkable trauma and loss, perhaps a nation may, too,” he writes.īlending family history and philosophical argument, Raskin’s is the rare politician’s memoir that reads like a genuine exploration of self rather than a branding exercise. For Raskin, these events are connected by more than their proximity in time. 6 riots and his tenure leading the second impeachment proceeding of Trump’s tenure. One is the legacy of his son, a law student and budding progressive whose death devastated Raskin, his wife, Sarah, and his two adult daughters, Hannah and Tabitha.
In his new book, “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy,” Raskin tells two stories. 6 insurrection at the Capitol - and became a central figure in the Democratic Party’s response.Īs the lead House of Representatives impeachment manager charged with prosecuting President Trump for his role in the riots, Raskin battled private anguish to lead a high-profile public investigation.
Just a few days later, he lived through the Jan. Congressman Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, lost his son to suicide in the last days of 2020.
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