Brett Guthrie, Kentucky’s Second Congressional District representative, speaks at an event to tout the Great American Outdoors Act at Mammoth Cave National Park on Monday, Aug. 17, 2020.
(BRENNAN CRAIN/WCLU NEWS FILE PHOTO)
WASHINGTON – While several people breached the United States Capitol on Wednesday, one of Kentucky’s representatives was in his office.
Rep. Brett Guthrie, Kentucky’s Second Congressional District representative, said he left the House chambers shortly before a “shelter in place” order was given to lawmakers.
Lawmakers convened a joint session of Congress at 1 p.m., but that session was ended when debate began to occur. The House and Senate broke away to debate in their respective chambers.
“I had spent probably the last several days discussing what we were going to go through in the afternoon with House members,” Guthrie said. “Personally, it was luck for me. I wish I would have been there to help people.”
Guthrie told WCLU News that he left the chambers and retreated to his office to watch key Republican senators debate the validity of some states’ electoral votes in the presidential election.
It was in his office that he watched Senator James Lankford deliver remarks when he noted the Senate took a rather swift recess. That recess lasted through the day and into the evening as many stormed the Capitol.
The violence that ensued Wednesday was incited after many supporters of President Donald Trump attended a rally. The President asserted the election was “rigged” and many states did not have accurate votes, leading to his defeat against Joseph Biden.
Those people, who were later tagged as “mobsters” and “domestic terrorists,” stormed the Capitol and eventually the House chamber.
“I was about to walk out of my office essentially and we got the notice that we needed to shelter in place,” Guthrie said. “Sort of from there on out, really, was watching what everybody else was watching on television – just a few hundred yards from it.”
Being the center of the nation’s legislative process, the United States Capitol is expected to be one of the most secure locations in the country. That was tested Wednesday with the infiltration, and Guthrie said he believes security measures need to be examined.
“I don’t like that image throughout the world, that you’re having to protect the counting of electoral votes by the military,” Guthrie said. “Turned out, that was the wrong decision not to have them there, unfortunately.”
Guthrie eventually voted against the rejection of the electoral votes, which means he agreed the process was vetted. He said he had studied much of the 12th Amendment, which many GOP lawmakers cited as a reason to reconsider some of the electoral votes.
“It is clear that once you get certified electoral votes, you have to count them,” Guthrie said.
And while Representative Ilhan Omar said she is drafting articles of impeachment, Guthrie said the time frame to impeach and convict President Trump is not long enough. Inauguration Day is fewer than two week away.
Guthrie represents much of central Kentucky, including Barren County.
