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Congressional Daily Record
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May 11, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextMr. DURBIN. This is Police Week. We are remembering John Bartholomew and hundreds of others who lost their lives in the line of duty to protect us and their families and neighborhoods. We take them for granted until these terrible tragedies occur, and then we come to realize how much is on the line every single day they put the badge on.
forward to this week to pass bipartisan—bipartisan—legislation to help our policemen. Under Chairman Grassley in my service as a ranking member, I will join that bipartisan effort again. But I do have to tell you I am disappointed that during Police Week we would consider on the floor of the U.S. Senate nominations for U.S. attorneys who have testified before our committee and said things which I believe do not reflect respect for the law as it should be—particularly when it comes to the January 6 insurrection in the Capitol.
I remember that day. It was one of the most noteworthy days of my service in the Senate. When Vice President Pence was presiding, we were counting the electoral ballots for the 2020 Presidential election. At about 2:10 p.m. in the afternoon, someone came in and pulled Vice President Pence out of that chair out that door. People couldn't understand why. There was a demonstration outside—a political demonstration—but we went about our business, and yet something had happened.
us and said: You can continue what you are doing, but stay in this room. We are going to make this a safe room in the U.S. Capitol—a safe room.
before us and said: Change of plans. We are evacuating the Senate Chamber, and we all filed out the door to another adjourning building where we were protected.
day. I think it was nothing less than an act of heroism and courage for them to defy this Trump crowd that was sent to disrupt the proceedings.
Unfortunately, the mob took over the Senate Chamber. C-SPAN broadcast as they took pictures and photos for one another, went rifling through our desks, and tried to take over the Capitol—we saw that later on. What an embarrassing chapter in the history of the United States.
people who have come before us seeking Federal positions since who don't take that seriously—what happened on January 6. Let me give you an example—and this individual is going to come up for a vote this week in the Senate—Police Week.
His name is Phillip Williams. He is from Alabama. Phillip Williams is seeking the U.S. attorney spot in Alabama. He argued that January 6 rioters were “Hunted down by Federal law enforcement,” whom he accused of prosecutorial abuse many, many times over.
national scale. He minimized the attack on the Capitol stating: It certainly was not an insurrection because there was no attempt to overthrow the government.
Guy Reffitt because he was nonviolent according to Williams and did not step into the Capitol.
Let me tell you the rest of the story about Reffitt that Mr. Williams, who seeks to represent the Department of Justice in the State of Alabama had to say.
carrying handguns, flex cuffs, and radios for communication. Prior to his arrest, Reffitt threatened his own minor children telling them: If you turn me in, you are traitors, and traitors get shot.
This man who dismissed Mr. Reffitt as a threat on January 6 wants to represent the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Department of Justice, in the State of Alabama. He has no place doing that. And for the Senate to vote for confirmation of this nomination on Police Week is, to my mind, a travesty.
He is not the only one in this group. I want to note one or two others. Darin Smith of Wyoming. Darin Smith, again, is seeking to become a U.S. attorney representing the Department of Justice in the State of Wyoming.
Mr. Smith was present at the U.S. Capitol on January 6—though he claimed he didn't enter any buildings. Regarding the insurrection, Smith contended that rioters were entrapped and that the U.S. Capitol Police were guilty of massive incompetence.
Mr. President, 140 of the U.S. Capitol Police who defended my life and the life of everyone in the Capitol on that day were injured. Two or three died as a consequence of that experience. And for him to argue that they were guilty of massive incompetence is an embarrassing statement. It is a slap in the face to the Capitol Police who risked their lives for me and for other Members.
Mr. Smith baselessly claimed FBI agents who interviewed him regarding his presence at the Capitol were sent there by Representative Liz Cheney “and her goons.” Afterward, he demanded that she should be censored by the Wyoming Republican Party.
administration to be given such positions of importance when they are so dismissive of the efforts by that mob to first injure the policemen who were doing their duty here in the Capitol and then to disrupt the proceedings that the Vice President was presiding over? The list goes on.
(Mr. McCORMICK assumed the Chair.)
comes to many judges and many U.S. attorneys, dismissing January 6 as just tourists out of control is acceptable by the Trump administration. Well, it is not acceptable. As someone who lived it, who witnessed it, saw it firsthand, that they are dismissing this operation on that day as simply some political statement is unfair.
Don't salute the police and ignore the obvious. The police were under attack on that day, and to dismiss that is to dismiss the obvious.