House Democrat says Congress should examine 25th Amendment to ensure it has the 'teeth it needs'

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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) told Raw Story during the House Select Committee hearing that the third day about the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election was a confirmation of what many of them already knew.

"It's just striking to hear from witnesses who are very much aligned with conservative causes," said Wild.

While the chair and vice-chair of the committee heralded Vice President Mike Pence as a man with "courage," critics have other comments. At least one question of Pence is why he reached out to so many people to ask advice about what he can or can't do on Jan. 6 if he never vacillated his role.

Wild maintained that Pence "did what any vice president of the United States, I hope, would do, which is fulfilled his Constitutional obligations and recognized the limits of his power that day and wasn't willing to be intimidated by a president who was bullying him."

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-NY) highlighted that "Trump and everyone around him knew that the theories they were pressing were, to quote the former attorney general, 'bullsh*t.' But they still did it."

She pointed out that she learned Judge Michael Luttig, who was a key conservative witness on Thursday, wasn't merely a mentor to Professor John Eastman, but also to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). The Texas senator offered to represent former President Donald Trump to the Supreme Court.

"Everyone they've called has been a conservative or a Republican," Gay Scanlon noted.

Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee (D-TX) spoke to Raw Story and focused on the fact that Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards testified earlier this week that she was slipping on the blood of her fellow officers on Jan. 6, 2021.

"That struck me because we were in hiding," she recalled. "And we did not really have a sense of what was going on."

She went on to hold up the officer and her heroism.

Jackson Lee said that at no time in history has anything like this happened and she hoped that Americans were watching and understood the gravity of what was being revealed at the hearing.

"This is what democracy has to do," she said. "If you fight for and have lost souls in a bloody battle — if you help the people of Ukraine to preserve their democracy, then you must do this. Because our democracy is almost gone. Donald Trump, still, to this day, still does not seem to understand what I think is the prime conspiracy that he perpetuated, on the American people, on Vice President Pence, and on the United States Congress."

Jackson Lee added that Congress should look at whether the 25th Amendment "has the teeth that it needs." The law requires the Cabinet of the President to essentially declare him incapacitated. "Is that going to be the right procedure to utilize?"

With additional reporting from Matt Laslo.