“Tabitha and Hank were with me in Steny’s office as colleagues dropped by to console us about the loss of our middle child, Tommy, our beloved Tommy.” Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader, offered the family use of his office. “They asked me directly ‘would it be safe’ and I told them ‘of course it should be safe, this is the Capitol,'” Raskin recalled. Tabitha and Hank had heard about the scheduled protests by Trump supporters and they were worried.
“I invited them instead to come with me to witness this historic event - the peaceful transfer of power in America,” Raskin recounted. He said that Hank and Tabitha were with him that day because “they wanted to be together with me in the middle of a devastating week for our family.” “There was also my son-in-law Hank who is married to our oldest, Hannah, and I consider him a son too, even though he eloped with my daughter and didn’t tell us.” Raskin then explained that the couple had an excuse for their elopement - the pandemic. “Distinguished members of the senate, my youngest daughter, Tabitha, was there with me it was the day after we buried her brother, my son Tommy, the saddest day of our lives,” he opened his speech. But eloquently and emotionally, Raskin’s speech reminds us of the personal and national costs incurred in that violent coup. The speech was harrowing and heart-wrenching - at certain moments throughout it, you can see the congressman barely holding back his tears.įor many of us, it is still hard to wrap our heads around what happened at the Capitol that day.
#SENATOR RASKIN SON LOSS TRIAL#
He spoke about how the day personally affected him and his family: “I hope this trial reminds America how personal democracy is,” he told the crowd. In an opening statement this Tuesday, on the first day of the trial, Raskin recounted the happenings of January 6, a day in which he should have been home, sitting shiva, in more detail than he ever had before. Raskin had just buried his son, Thomas “Tommy” Bloom Raskin, who died by suicide, a day earlier. The Jewish politician, lawyer, and law scholar was at the Capitol during the mob violence on January 6, along with his daughter and son-in-law. Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland is leading the senate trial against former President Donald Trump as impeachment manager.