Murphy to Republicans On Trump's Attempts to Jail Democratic Lawmakers: We Can't Let This Democracy Die On Our Watch

WASHINGTON-U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) took to the floor of the U.S. Senate today to call on his Republican colleagues to recognize Donald Trump's unprecedented, attempted indictment of six Democratic lawmakers as a grave threat to our democracy and unite with Democrats to put a stop to Trump's relentless assault on free speech.

Murphy cautioned this failed indictment would not be the end of Trump's attempts to jail Senators Kelly and Slotkin: "It doesn't really matter that the grand jury refused to indict, because if they continue to come back over and over again for an indictment, they will likely find at some point, some compliant grand jury, and we will find our colleagues headed to jail simply for exercising their free speech."

He called on Democrats and Republicans to set aside partisanship and stand up for their colleagues: "This is a moment where we could decide to agree. Not everything has to be skins and shirts, not everything that we think has to automatically be wrong. We could very easily decide this week that it is not acceptable for the President of the United States to attempt to throw into jail his political opponents in the Senate and in the House, and maybe that could provide a springboard for us to decide that there are other abuses of presidential authority that may, in the long run, harm both Republican and Democratic interests, but fundamentally harm the health of our democracy."

Murphy argued Republicans would have never accepted Trump's authoritarian attempts to suppress his political opponents' free speech if they'd come from a Democratic president: "If the shoe was on the other foot, I want my Republican colleagues to think about what you would say if a Democratic president opened up a criminal investigation into the Chairman of the Federal Reserve simply over a dispute over interest rate policy? … Would our Republican colleagues think it was a red line if Sean Hannity was taken down off the air by a Democratic president's FCC? … Or what if he indicted or attempted to indict two of your members, two Republicans, simply because they had raised their voices in objection to a Democratic president's policies? We all know the answer to every single one of those questions."

He urged his colleagues to stand up for the democratic project: "I understand that for all of us who have grown up in a relatively safe and secure American democracy, contested by foreign adversaries but never under any real threat that we were going to lose the democracy from within, have come to believe some sense of inevitability about the survivability of American democracy. But every civilization, every form of government, has an expiration date. Every attempt at Republicanism or democracy over the course of this globe's history has ended, and ours will end at some point. Our job as senators, whether you have an 'R' after your name or a 'D' after your name, is to make sure that that end doesn't happen on our watch."

Murphy concluded by warning Republicans their inaction today could backfire in the long run: "This is a moment of test for the Senate…this is a moment that could break this institution permanently, if it is only Democrats standing up here and defending our colleagues. It should matter first that they are senators, that they were elected by the people of their state to represent Republicans and Democrats in their state. It should matter second, the party that is listed after their name."

A full transcript of Murphy's remarks is available below.

MURPHY: Mr. President, the tendency here in the Senate, often when Democrats are lodging a complaint about Donald Trump, is for our Republican colleagues to issue an argument of equivalency: 'Well, Donald Trump did this, but so did Joe Biden.' 'Donald Trump did that, but Joe Biden did this.'

We're at a moment today, though, in which there is no argument of equivalency. And in fact, over and over again in the past year, we have seen threats to our democracy that have no historical precedent. We must be able to agree that never before in the history of the Senate has a President of the United States sought to jail members of this body based upon their political opposition to the President of the United States. All that our colleagues did was record a video in which they simply repeated the law of the land, the existing military code, said things into a camera that the current Secretary of Defense has said himself almost verbatim. But because he was reciting, because she was reciting, a portion of the military code that the President objects to - because it was inherently a criticism of the president - they are now facing down possible indictment.

It doesn't really matter that the grand jury refused to indict, because if they continue to come back over and over again for an indictment, they will likely find at some point, some compliant grand jury, and we will find our colleagues headed to jail simply for exercising their free speech. Never before in the history of our country has something like this happened. And I understand that for all of us who have grown up in a relatively safe and secure American democracy, contested by foreign adversaries but never under any real threat that we were going to lose the democracy from within, have come to believe some sense of inevitability about the survivability of American democracy. But every civilization, every form of government, has an expiration date. Every attempt at Republicanism or democracy over the course of this globe's history has ended, and ours will end at some point.

Our job as senators, whether you have an 'R' after your name or a 'D' after your name, is to make sure that that end doesn't happen on our watch. And at some point, you have to look at the series of exceptional, unprecedented events that have happened in the last year and see them as part of an unprecedented, ahistorical pattern. I agree with my colleagues. Long ago, in my mind, we crossed the red line.

But think about it. If the shoe was on the other foot, I want my Republican colleagues to think about what you would say if a Democratic President opened up a criminal investigation into the Chairman of the Federal Reserve simply over a dispute over interest rate policy? What would my Republican colleagues say, if a Democratic president deployed the national guard against a Republican state like Texas or Louisiana? Would our Republican colleagues think it was a red line if Sean Hannity was taken down off the air by a Democratic president's FCC? What would Republicans say? Would it be a confrontation with American democracy, if journalists were removed from a Democratic president's Pentagon because of their critical stories about the Democratic administration's policy? Would Republicans think there was a problem? If universities were denied funding because they weren't hiring enough liberal left-wing professors? How about if a Democratic president confiscated ballots in one of your states so as to prove that Donald Trump didn't really win the election, that it was fraudulent? Or what if he indicted or attempted to indict two of your members, two Republicans, simply because they had raised their voices in objection to a Democratic president's policies?

We all know the answer to every single one of those questions. If a Democratic president had done any of those things, you would be shutting down the United States Senate. You would be labeling each and every one of them as a potentially existential threat to our democracy, and you would use every lever available to you to try to confront that abuse of power. There is no equivalency argument. President Biden didn't do any of the things that I just listed. And yes, I know my Republican colleagues have objections about the way that he used the Department of Justice, objections about the things he said about Republicans. But never, never were Republican senators facing a grand jury, the threat of indictment hanging over their heads, simply because they spoke truth that a Democratic president objected to.

At some point this democracy will die, and our purpose here is to improve the quality of life for our constituents, but to protect the democracy at all costs. There has to be a bipartisan response to the broad abuses of power, but specifically right now to the fact that two of our colleagues are on the verge of being arrested by this President simply based on their political opposition to the President.

This is a moment where we could decide to agree. Not everything has to be skins and shirts, not everything that we think has to automatically be wrong. We could very easily decide this week that it is not acceptable for the President of the United States to attempt to throw into jail his political opponents in the Senate and in the House. And maybe that could provide a springboard for us to decide that there are other abuses of presidential authority that may, in the long run, harm both Republican and Democratic interests, but fundamentally harm the health of our democracy that we could join together in league against as well. This is a moment of test for the Senate. I agree with my colleague, Senator Schatz, this is a moment that could break this institution permanently, if it is only Democrats standing up here and defending our colleagues. It should matter. First, that they are senators, that they were elected by the people of their state to represent Republicans and Democrats in their state. It should matter second, the party that is listed after their name. I yield the floor.