Jamie Ruskin, the House Democrat who led the impeachment of Domi Trump, recalled his son Tommy on Sunday, saying: “I’m not going to lose my son in late 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021 . It is not going away. Happen.”
Tommy Ruskin, a Harvard Law student struggling with depression, died on New Year’s Eve. He was 25 years old.
His father, a constitutional law professor and representative of Maryland, was named as chief impeachment manager for Trump’s second Senate trial this week. The president was impeached for the second time on January 6 for inciting an attack on the US Capitol, killing five people, furthering his baseless claim that the election was stolen.
Trump’s trial could begin soon after Joe Biden came to power on Wednesday. Ruskin discussed CNN’s impeachment on the state association on Sunday. He was also asked about his son.
“Tommy was a notable figure,” he said. He said, “He had a great love for humanity and our country for all the people in the world. We lost him on the last day of that terrible year of God, 2020 and he left us a note saying ‘ Please forgive me, my disease lives today, take care of each other, animals for me and the global poor, all my love Tommy. ‘
“And it was the last act of life that was dazzled.”
People were asking, he said, why he agreed to take such a senior role in the trial of impeachment in such a difficult time.
“First of all,” he said, with a laugh, “I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to say no to the speaker [Nancy] Pelosi was really very sensitive and thoughtful about anything but she wanted me to do it because she knows that I have dedicated my life to the Constitution and the Republic. I am a professor of constitutional law, but I have truly done this to my son with my heart, and helping to move forward. I feel him in my chest.
“When we went to count the votes of the Electoral College and [the Capitol] Under that horrific attack, I felt my son with me and I was concerned with my youngest daughter and my son-in-law, who married our second daughter, who was with me that day and who was locked in a room at home. Floor of.
“There was a fierce armed mob between them and me, who could easily kill them and blast them at the doors where they hid under a desk with my Chief of Staff Julie Tagan.”
“These events are personal to me. Our country was attacked, our people were attacked. “
Asked how he could deal with such “trauma above trauma”, Ruskin said: “I am not going to lose my son in late 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021” It is not going to happen.
“And the vast majority of the American people, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, reject armed rebellion and violence as a new way of doing business in America. We are not going to do that.
“It was the most horrible crime against our country by the President of the United States. And I want everyone to realize the gravity and seriousness of those events at the same time so that we all have a deep investment in President-Elect Biden, and Vice-President-Elect [Kamala] Harris, advancing the country. “
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in four Americans under the age of 25 have considered suicide since the onset of the coronovirus epidemic. Ruskin was asked if he had a message to deal with depression in person or in family members.
“We don’t want to lose anyone else,” he said. “We are hearing from thousands and thousands of people across the country and if any of them are out there, thank you for your kindness to our family.”
He said the family had established the Tommy Ruskin Memorial Fund for People and Animals, which now has more than $ 400,000, with his classmates at Harvard Law School raising $ 5,000 or $ 6,000 to believe they would keep going.
“But we don’t need to wait for people to die to hear them. We can hear you right now.”
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