U.S. Rep. Jason Crow
Posted January 8, 2026
Editor’s Note: Congressman Jason Crow (CO-06) testified on Jan 6, 2026, before a congressional hearing to mark five years since the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. On that day, supporters of President Donald Trump tried to stop the certification of the free and fair 2020 presidential election. Their violent insurrection, encouraged by President Trump, led to the death of five law enforcement officers and injured at least 140 more. The following are his remarks:
Thank you Chairman Thompson. Thank you Speaker Pelosi, Leader Jeffries, Chairman Thompson and Members of the Select Committee for your incredible work, your leadership in articulating and preserving the facts and the memory and the history of what happened on January 6th.
I’m proud to be an American, and it is a time for a new American patriotism, for us to take back our democracy, and to move us forward in a better direction.
All my colleagues have done a remarkable job chronicling the violence, the sheer brutality as we saw 140 police officers brutally beaten by a mob inspired and weaponized and sent to the United States Capitol on his behalf to do violence, to derail our democracy and the will of the voters.
I served three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a paratrooper and an Army Ranger, and I never thought I would see the type of violence that I saw overseas at the pantheon of our democracy.
But I want this moment to be a moment of hope and resolve. It must be a moment of hope and resolve.
There’s been a lot of talk about oaths and leadership and bravery versus cowardice. There’s a lot of cowardice in our country today. There are universities buckling, CEOs taking the knee, law firms cowing, Members of Congress capitulating. There is a lot of it.
But in moments of greatness, and pivotal times of our country, it’s never the story of the cowards. It’s never their story. It’s always the story of the heroes, who are more often than not regular Americans doing amazing things. The story of people like Youman Wilder, a little league coach in Harlem, who, when federal agents descended on his baseball field and harassed and intimidated and threatened his kids, he said no: ‘these are my kids, this is my baseball field, you leave. You have no right to be here’. It’s the story of the millions of Americans who show up for No Kings rallies, the story of election officials who, despite threats and harassment and intimidation, say no, I will do my duty. It is their story.
As a paratrooper, there’s a history and tradition that the senior paratrooper on a plane jumps out of the plane first, and then the other paratroopers follow, and it’s based on the idea that fear is contagious, but so is courage.
This is our moment. We never asked for it; none of us woke up this morning thinking we wanted to live in an era of extremism and violence, where our democracy is being threatened and disassembled brick by brick, but that is always the nature of leadership. We never get to choose our moment. We only have to answer the question of what we are willing to do to stand up and meet that moment.
And that is why I am so proud to be here with the people at this table, with the people at this dias, because you are all meeting the moment. America will meet the moment, and the little league coaches, the election officials, the store clerks, the police officers — everybody will stand up and defend our country and our democracy at its time of great need, and I’m so proud to be a part of it, I’m proud to be an American, and it is a time for a new American patriotism, for us to take back our democracy, and to move us forward in a better direction. I yield back.
U.S. Congressman Jason Crow, a former paratrooper and Army Ranger, serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Armed Services Committee. On January 6, he was trapped in the U.S. House Gallery in the “Gallery Group” as rioters breached the Capitol.
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