A Year Later, Maryland Representatives Mfume and Ruppersberger Reflect on the January 6 Resurrection – CBS Baltimore

BALTIMORE (WJZ) – Two Maryland congressmen are reflecting on January 6^order uprising a year after it happened.

“You know that’s what you want to think is a nightmare that didn’t happen but it did,” said MP Kweisi Mfume.

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On that day, Mfume recalled counting votes to certify the election and then hearing someone knocking on the door on the second floor. He then went down to the basement of the Capitol to his office and along the way he saw people running and screaming and then heard a noise he had never heard before.

“I heard the whistle halfway down the tunnel and I realized something was really wrong. I never heard those whistles,” he said.

The congressman went to his office, bolted the door and tried to reassure his staff and waited for instructions from the Capitol Police.

He said what he went through afterwards reminded him of the Ku Klux Klan rallies he saw as a child.

Witnessing what I saw in the eyes of those protesters made me think back to a long time ago when I was just a boy and the hatred I see in the eyes of those who sympathize with the Klan. , who are just fuckers with their union flags. Undo progress for the day. ”

Representative Dutch Ruppersberger was in his office, across from the Capitol, and he recalled seeing a growing crowd.

“It’s weird that we still have more people showing up, basically rioters, and then we start seeing the Washington DC police coming in and we think this looks like it’s going to pass. out of control and the next thing you know we’re in Congress, said Ruppersberger.

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Ruppersberger said he was surprised at the lack of law enforcement as the situation unfolded.

“The FBI, who have been providing intelligence to the police, have been told that we really don’t need you, this is the nation’s Capitol, we want to keep it open. And as a result of that decision, we basically allowed an uprising to keep growing and happening. “

Both congressmen and their staff waited in their offices for hours until they were told it was safe to leave.

“It was one of the worst days in the history of our country,” Congressman Ruppersberger said. “It was an uprising of the United States of America. We believe in democracy and democracy has been knocked down by the President of the United States of America and his people. ”

Going forward, Mfume says the country must be strong and resilient against those who seek to abandon democracy.

“The real issue here is democracy, keeping it sacred so everyone can participate, everyone can vote and every vote counts,” MP Mfume said.

A select committee of the House of Representatives is continuing to investigate January 6^order attack the Capitol. The committee will soon present their findings in a report to the attorney general, who will then decide on next steps.

Mfume said he hopes that more people in power will be held accountable for the events that happened during the attack.

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“I hope those next steps mean that there will be charges in the attempt to prosecute all the people at the highest levels, who had anything to do with the staging of this case, who had anything to do with it. causing it and who did it. continued to call it a big lie, that there wasn’t a real election,” he said.