WASHINGTON β Sen. Patrick Leahy lingered on a narrow balcony on the west side of the U.S. Capitol, soaking in a panoramic view of the National Mall, the Washington Monument and, beyond, the Lincoln Memorial.
βNow this I will miss,β he said.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the president pro tempore of the Senate, discusses his life in the Senate and his Vermont roots during an Associated Press interview Monday in his office at the Capitol in Washington.
As Leahy closes out a Senate career that has spanned 48 years, the Vermont senator is saying goodbye to Washington with a mix of resignation and resolve, lamenting the hyperpartisanship that now grips Congress while expressing hope that the institution as he once knew it can someday return.
βIf we donβt get back to it, this country is going to be severely damaged,β he said. βWeβre the wealthiest, most powerful powerful nation on Earth. And we have over 300 million Americans. We have responsibility to the Americans. We have a responsibility to the rest of the world.β
Leahy, 82, is president pro tempore of the Senate and third in line to the presidency. He reflected on his career during a wide-ranging interview Monday with The Associated Press in his office at the Capitol, recalling how when he first joined the Senate in 1975, colleagues with starkly different views could still find ways to get things done.
βI think then, most of (the senators) knew there were basic things the Senate should do, basic things the country needed, and we should find a way to come together,β Leahy said.
βNow, there are too many people who think, βWhat can I say that will get me on the evening news or give me a sound bite or get me on this Twitter account,β or something else. They donβt care about the country. They care about their political ambitions.β
The willingness to work across the aisle isnβt gone entirely. Leahy, who shapes federal spending as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, pointed to this weekβs unveiling of a compromise $1.7 trillion government funding package. Itβs a capstone of sorts to Leahyβs career, and one he helped negotiate largely in private.
βI never called a press conference during that time, nor did the other senators in there,β he said. βWe just tried to work. There is so much legislation that doesnβt get passed but it should because everybodyβs running out trying to get their spin on it, and say, βSee, Iβm the only one who knows what Iβm doing.β But youβre not.β
Leahy will officially leave office on Jan. 3, when his successor β Vermontβs Democratic Rep. Peter Welch β will be sworn into office. After that Leahy is planning to return to Vermont and work out of an office at the University of Vermont in Burlington, which will become home to his Senate records. The first in his family to go to college, Leahy said he wants to help young people from rural areas obtain higher education.
With tearful colleagues gathered in the chamber, Leahy gave his final address to the Senate on Tuesday, exhorting his colleagues to carry on the work.
βWhat a journey. What an abiding hope that someday after Iβve gone, the Senate in both parties will come back together to be the conscience of the nation,β he said in his address. βTogether, you can build a Senate defined not by soundbites, but one strengthened when women and men with a sense of history insist that our republic move forward.β
During his eight terms in the Senate, Leahy racked up a lengthy list of accomplishments, chairing or serving as the top member of the opposing party on the Senate Appropriations, Judiciary and Agriculture committees, among others. Heβs currently the longest-serving senator and third in line to the presidency as president pro tempore. Heβs the fourth-longest serving senator in history and has cast nearly 17,000 votes.
Leahy has been active on judicial, criminal justice, gay rights, human rights, privacy and environmental issues. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he led the Senateβs negotiations with the Bush administration on the Patriot Act, the sweeping anti-terrorism bill responding to the attacks.
One of his first significant votes in 1975 was against continued funding for the Vietnam War. In 2002 he voted against authorizing the use of force in Iraq.
He helped establish what is now the nearly $60 billion organic food industry. He helped bring about the worldβs first ban on the export of antipersonnel landmines, and heβs helped bring hundreds of jobs to Vermont and millions of dollars to help clean up his beloved Lake Champlain.
Leahy took office when Vermont was still considered a largely Republican bastion. Now itβs considered by many to be among the most progressive places in the country.
βWe changed. We have become more diverse and thatβs better for Vermont,β he said. βWhat we have to do now is rely not just on rhetoric, but do the hard work to create real jobs, housing for people (so they) can stay in Vermont.β
Asked how he wanted to be remembered, he responded: βI want the legacy (to be) that I kept my word.β
5 takeaways from the Jan. 6 report
1. Eight chapters
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From the "Big Lie" of Trump's November 2020 election night claims of a stolen election to the bloody Jan. 6, 2021, siege, the report spells out the start and finish of the mob attack that played out for the world to see.
It details how Trump and his allies engaged in a "multi-part" scheme to overturn Joe Biden's presidential election victory β first through court challenges, then, when those failed, by compiling slates of electors to challenge Joe Biden's victory.
As Congress prepared to convene Jan. 6 to certify the election, Trump summoned a mob to Washington for his "Stop the Steal" rally at the White House.
"When Donald Trump pointed them toward the Capitol and told them to 'fight like hell,' that's exactly what they did," Thompson wrote. "Donald Trump lit that fire. But in the weeks beforehand, the kindling he ultimately ignited was amassed in plain sight."
2. New details, pressures
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After blockbuster public hearings, the report and its accompanying materials are providing more detailed accounts of key aspects of the Trump team's plan to overturn the election, join the mob at the Capitol and, once the committee began investigating, pressure those who would testify against him.
Among dozens of new witness transcripts was Thursday's release of a previously unseen account from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson (pictured) detailing a stunning campaign by Trump's allies encouraging her to stay "loyal" as she testified before the panel.
The report said the committee estimates that in the two months between the November election and the Jan. 6 attack, "Trump or his inner circle engaged in at least 200 apparent acts of public or private outreach, pressure, or condemnation, targeting either State legislators or State or local election administrators, to overturn State election results."
3. Behind the scenes
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The report also details Trump's inaction as his loyalists were violently storming the building.
One Secret Service employee testified to the committee that Trump's determination to go to the Capitol put agents on high alert.
"(We) all knew ... that this was going to move to something else if he physically walked to the Capitol," a unidentified employee said. "I don't know if you want to use the word 'insurrection,' 'coup,' whatever. We all knew that this would move from a normal democratic ... public event into something else."
Once the president arrived back at the White House after delivering a speech to his supporters, he asked an employee if they had seen his remarks on television.
"Sir, they cut it off because they're rioting down at the Capitol," the staffer said, according to the report.
Trump asked what that meant, and was given the same answer. "Oh really?" Trump then asked. "All right, let's go see."
4. Safeguarding democracy
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The report makes 11 recommendations for Congress and others to safeguard American democracy and its tradition of the peaceful transfer of presidential power from one leader to the next.
The first, an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act, is on its way to becoming law in the year-end spending bill heading toward final passage this week in Congress.
The committee also made recommendations to the Justice Department to prosecute Trump and others for conspiracy to commit fraud on the public, and other potential charges. It also referred the former president for prosecution for "assisting and providing aid and comfort to an insurrection."
Other changes may be within reach or prove more elusive. Among them, the report recommends beefing up security around key congressional events, overhauling oversight of the Capitol Police and enhancing federal penalties for certain types of threats against election workers.
One recommendation is for Congress to create a formal mechanism to consider barring individuals from public office if they engage in insurrection or rebellion under the Fourteenth Amendment. It holds that those who have taken an oath to support the Constitution can be disqualified from holding future federal or state office if they back an insurrection.
5. Record for history
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The Jan. 6 committee was created after Congress rebuked an effort to form an independent 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol attack. Republicans blocked the idea.
Instead, Speaker Nancy Pelosi led the House to form the committee. In her foreword to the report, she said it "must be a clarion call to all Americans: to vigilantly guard our Democracy."
Led by Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the panel's work is intended to stand as a record for history of what happened during the most serious attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812.
Five people died in the riot and its aftermath, including Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter shot and killed by police, and Brian Sicknick, a police officer who died the day after battling the mob.
Cheney noted the committee decided most of its witnesses needed to be Republicans β the president's own team and allies. In the report's foreword, she wrote that history will remember the "bravery of a handful of Americans" and those who withstood Trump's "corrupt pressure."
For all of them, the committee and report held personal weight.
Thompson, a Black leader in Congress, noted that the iconic U.S. Capitol, built with enslaved labor, "itself is a fixture in our country's history, of both good and bad ... a symbol of our journey toward a more perfect union."
