Kelly: “This is the master alarm flashing for our democracy”
Today, Senators Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) held a press conference on Capitol Hill to discuss reports that President Trump’s Department of Justice tried and failed to secure a federal grand jury indictment against the two of them.
Sen. Kelly speaks on Capitol Hill.
Watch and download the full press conference here. See key excerpts below:
Kelly warned that Trump is abusing power to intimidate critics and send a chilling message to anyone who speaks out: “Yesterday, we saw the great lengths that Donald Trump and his administration will go to abuse power in order to silence and intimidate anyone who disagrees with them. We learned, through the media, that federal prosecutors tried and failed to get an indictment against us from a grand jury. This is outrageous.
“I want to be clear about something: This is not a ‘good-news’ story. This is a story about how hard Donald Trump and his cronies are trying to break our system in order to silence anyone who lawfully speaks out against them. And to send a signal to every American that they better think twice before they speak out, or else they might be next.”
Kelly described the push to criminally charge senators for speech as an authoritarian move: “Federal prosecutors went to a grand jury to seek criminal charges against members of the United States Senate for something we said. They tried to have us charged and thrown in jail because we said something they didn’t like. Because we repeated what the law actually is.
“This happened here. This is straight from the authoritarian playbook, but it didn’t happen in Russia or China. In Russia and China, we see these things. This didn’t happen decades ago. It happened less than a mile from this building. in the United States or America, yesterday.”
Kelly cautioned that Trump’s retaliation campaign is a direct threat to the Constitution: “This is the master alarm flashing for our democracy. It is threatening the very foundations of our system. That we have the right to free speech. To lawfully speak out about and protest our government, without fear of retaliation. That we have a Congress whose responsibility and obligation is to oversee and criticize, when necessary, the executive branch. That we have a Department of Justice that is independent and loyal to the Constitution, not to one man.
“Donald Trump and his lackeys are putting all of that at risk for their own power. They don’t care about everyday Americans. They don’t care about the struggles people are facing with rising costs and a crappy economy. They don’t care about using the justice system to go after real criminals. They care about themselves, their own power, and their own wealth.”
Kelly urged Republicans to speak out: “Where are they? Where are the free speech absolutist Republicans now, who were so concerned about the weaponization of government? What happened to them? Where are they as Donald Trump tries to throw Senators and Representatives in jail for what they say?
“The best moment for them to stand up would have been in November, when Donald Trump said we should be hanged for this video. But the next best moment is right now. Because our democracy has been around for 250 years, but it isn’t guaranteed.”
Kelly underscored that he and Slotkin won’t back down from this fight: “Senator Slotkin and I didn’t ask for this. We’re just the first through the breach. But you’ll be damn sure we aren’t going to back down. We’ve been in war zones for this country. We’ve fought our countries’ enemies. This doesn’t intimidate us. And we know that this is much bigger than the two of us. The most patriotic thing any American can do is to continue exercising our rights, continue speaking truth to power, and not backing down.”
