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Dear John,
Four years ago today, the House of Representatives voted to impeach the President of the United States, Donald Trump. So today, I felt it appropriate to share some of my thoughts on the path we’ve taken in the four years since — and reflect on the road ahead.
Did you know recent expert reports find more than twice as many countries are moving toward authoritarianism as those moving toward democracy?
The evidence is clear right here in the United States — in the four years since Trump’s first impeachment, we had to impeach him a second time after he incited a violent insurrection that threatened our democracy’s very existence.
Trump is still the same existential threat. In recent weeks, he’s vowed to be a dictator on Day One — and his loyalist MAGA supporters cheer.
He has tried to cheat in every election, and he will again. I said as much on the Senate floor during his trial. You can’t trust this president to do the right thing. Not for one minute, not for one election, not for the sake of our country. You just can’t. He will not change and you know it.
In the 2016 election, it was by attempting to secure Russian help to obtain his opponent’s emails and then making full use of what Russia stole. It involved his campaign manager giving Russian intelligence their internal campaign polling data while Russian intelligence was doing a clandestine social media campaign to help him in battleground states.
In the 2020 election, it was by extorting Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to open an investigation of Trump’s opponent — by threatening to withhold military aid for their war against Russia’s ongoing military occupation.
And when he lost, he attempted the first presidential coup in American history.
Trump’s threats are not empty. And authoritarians across the globe have taken Trump’s cue to tighten their grips on power. On January 8 of this year, the Brazilian far-right stormed their Congress in their national capital after the incumbent far-right president lost his reelection. And there are more examples the world over.
I have stood up against authoritarianism and in support of democracy for my entire career. From my chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee to serving as the lead impeachment manager in Trump’s first Senate trial, to serving on the January 6 Select Committee, I have always put my oath of office and the Constitution first.
We are not out of the woods yet. Authoritarians like Trump will repeat the same outrageous lies over and over again in the hopes that we will tire, give in, and stop fighting back. They seek to overwhelm us with misinformation, divide us with prejudice, bigotry, racism, and xenophobia, and obscure their corrupt misdeeds with constant campaigns of projection onto their opponents.
It’s why Trump and his MAGA allies have called me a liar so relentlessly. They hope voters will not know what to believe. That we will stop fighting back when they go on the attack. That they can eventually overwhelm us with a Big Lie after we are too tired to fight back.
But we must fight.
That’s what this campaign is about — to protect our democracy and build an economy that works for everyone so that we are never again susceptible to the siren sound of a dictator who promises that he alone can fix it.
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Thank you for putting your trust in me to defend this remarkable American experiment in democracy. With your support, we will protect it and help it flourish, stronger than ever.
Adam
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