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Rep. Andy Kim cleaning up at midnight after riots
âItâs a room that I love so much. … It pained me so much to see it in this kind of condition,â the New Jersey Democrat said.Unlike many of his congressional colleagues, Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J., was in his office in a separate federal building when President Donald Trumpâs supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday afternoon. So he didnât actually see the damage live until nearly midnight, after the House had voted down the last challenge to the presidential election result.
When he finally did walk around the rotunda â his favorite and arguably the most storied room of the building â the disarray left him speechless. Water bottles, broken furniture, tattered Trump flags and pieces of body armor and clothing were strewn on the marble floor as if it were an abandoned parking lot.
âItâs a room that I love so much â itâs the heart of the Capitol, literally the heart of this country. It pained me so much to see it in this kind of condition.â
âI was just overwhelmed with emotion,â Kim, 38, told NBC Asian America. âItâs a room that I love so much â itâs the heart of the Capitol, literally the heart of this country. It pained me so much to see it in this kind of condition.â
So for the next hour and a half, he crouched down and filled a half dozen trash bags with debris. When he finished cleaning up the rotunda, he began working on the adjacent rooms, including the National Statuary Hall and the Capitol crypt downstairs.
Then he returned to the House floor to debate Pennsylvania’s vote count, a session that lasted until 3 a.m. By Thursday evening, heâd been awake for more than 36 hours.
On a day in which video of mayhem and bloodshed inundated social media, a widely shared photograph of Kim, alone on his knees, picking up the final pieces of garbage in a nearly empty rotunda, was a radical break from â and rejection of â the violent impulses that drove the country to the brink of collapse. Many people labeled him a âtrue patriot.â While Kim said he didnât dwell much on the symbolic heft of his actions, the term was on his mind.
âI feel blessed to have this opportunity as a son of immigrants to be able to serve in Congress,â he said. âDemocracy to me is this place of opportunity that is affording me a chance to do something extraordinary.â
In 2018, Kim became the first Asian American to represent New Jersey in Congress, flipping a predominantly white district that voted for Trump in 2016 and did so again in 2020. (Kim won re-election in November despite voting to impeach the president last year.)
The irony of a history-making Korean American lawmaker dusting up after a white supremacist riot is not lost on Kim. But he also pointed to the progress thatâs been made.
âI represent a district where the vast majority of people do not look like me,â he said. âBut theyâve voted for me twice now to be their representative, and thatâs a beautiful thing. There are others who seek to make me seem like an ‘other’ whether itâs because of skin color, or gender, or sexuality. But thatâs not what this is about. Weâre all Americans.â
A former national security aide under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Kim recently spoke about how simmering ideological tensions can become dangerous during presidential transitions. But while he expected the hate and anger that defined the Trump era to escalate in the aftermath of the election, Wednesdayâs events still shocked him. In the roughly six hours he spent sheltered in his office, he worried about the safety of his colleagues and staffers as the pro-Trump mob ransacked the Capitol.
At one point, he recalled receiving a security alert that Capitol police had lost control of the building.
âIâve spent a lot of time in Afghanistan and Iraq, Iâve been in war zones where Iâve had to shelter in place, but I never would have imagined that this would happen here,â he said, noting that he didnât know at the time whether the rioters were armed. âIt was a terrifying experience.â
Bridging the deep racial and ideological chasms in this country, Kim said, will require legislative action to rein in the radicalization of white supremacists and the proliferation of disinformation.
At the same time, he said, there must also be profound shifts in the way Americans treat one another on a personal level.
âThe depth of the divisions that we have isnât something any single law can wipe off the face of our planet,â he said. âWe also need to recognize that how we get through that is by seeing the humanity in each other. There are ways we can have debates and disagreements but not resort to violence.â
I am very curious to see what happens to the Trump rioters. I seriously doubt most of those fools will see serious prison time. Biden and Merrick Garland (I assume he will take the lead on the prosecutions) will probably talk about the nation coming together or some nonsense. We’ll see.
This is the best discussion that I have seen so far of serious charges that should be applied to hundreds of people who stormed the Capitol.
From the Detroit Free Press
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/01/06/us-capitol-breach-sedition-legal-expert-says/6571725002/On the high end, charges of civil disorder, interfering with law enforcement, or inciting a riot could all be possible, up to seditious conspiracy â a federal charge punishable by up to 20 years in prison, he said.
That latter charge seemed most appealing to two professors of Western Michigan Universityâs Cooley Law School.
It reads:
âIf two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”
The phrase âdelay the execution of the lawâ is key, and what was seen from some of the Trump supporters Wednesday, said Devin Schindler, a law professor who once clerked for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
âFor at least some of these protesters, particularly the ones that broke into the Capitol, I think there’s an extraordinarily strong case that they used force to delay, to hinder, the execution of our laws governing the election and how electoral votes are counted,â he said. âIt seems fairly clear to me, based on what we’re seeing, that folks are in fact, almost textbook violating this seditious conspiracy statute by using force to interfere with lawful government activity.”
Though people on Twitter were levying the term âtreason,â he and Schneider both agreed the charge didnât quite fit with what is known, because treason requires the involvement of enemies to the U.S.
Retired Brig.Gen. Michael McDaniel, associate dean for the Western Michigan University-Cooley Law School, too, pointed to sedition as a key possible charge in the case, after possible lesser charges.
He also said the defense might be difficult; First Amendment protections arenât in play once a break-in occurs.
The idea of âseditionâ has changed, he said, pointing to the version President John Adams used against his political opponents. Itâs been narrowed by the courts in the present day.
He also raised concern for a different federal charge of rebellion or insurrection, which could carry a sentence of 10 years in prison, and Trumpâs words at the rally earlier in the day.
âRemember it’s got to be âagainst the authority of the United States,ââ he said, using the language of the law. âSo a really interesting question to pose to my law students later on this week is whether or not the president’s speech ⊠was inciting them to violence against the authority of the government of the United States.â
Depending on that answer, given the presidentâs role, another impeachment would perhaps be more appropriate than a charge, he said.
There likely wonât be any court action quickly on the events of the day, Michael Traugott, a professor emeritus of communication studies and political science and research professor emeritus at the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan, said. There will be jurisdiction issues, even among which agencies will be doing investigations.
_____________________________________________Are you lefties in favor of serious jail time for nearly all of those fools who stormed the Capitol? Or is that too draconian?
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