Mary-Charlotte Domandi:
What are you hearing from your constituents here in New Mexico?
Teresa Leger Fernandez:
So everybody that’s reached out has been very, one, concerned about what happened. They were wonderfully sweet in terms of very concerned about our own safety, me and my family and my staff. There were many blessings and prayers that have been said for us and for Congress. And people want to see the impeachment.
MCD:
There’s the impeachment, and then there’s the 25th amendment. Is either one of those sort of more likely in your mind to be a reality?
TLF:
The 25th amendment is, will only be a reality if vice president Pence agrees. That is something that we can initiate in terms of a commission and a request from the Congress. And then the impeachment is something that initiates in the House and will move quickly. It was clear in retrospect that Mitch McConnell knew something would come up, so he set the schedule of the Senate in a way that does not allow them to be called back in. So he probably knew that there would be something the House would be requesting the Senate consider. And so he set the schedule in a way that makes it basically impossible for them to be called back in, cause they’d need a hundred Senators agreeing to go back in next week. So the newspaper reports say that he will take it up after they, uh, the Senate doesn’t go back into session until the 19th. So the house will take up the impeachment articles.
MCD:
One of the things that has been concerning to a lot of people is the idea that if he is not impeached or removed from office between now and the 20th of January, that he could basically pardon everybody who was involved in the insurrection. Is that something that you’re thinking about?
TLF:
I think that’s something a lot of people are thinking about. I mean, I think there’s a lot of legal questions around all of that. You know, my thought now is they also haven’t actually charged everybody that would be charged nor have they charged them with all of the different kinds of crimes that they may be charged with. Aspects of felony murder could be applied to many of them because when they forced their way in and breached and hammered and busted the windows in and surged into the Capitol, they all were angry and they were a mob and they killed somebody. You know, there have been many instances where if you are involved in criminal activity and somebody dies, you can be charged with that as a felony murder. And that’s been charged numerous times. So will they charge that now? Whether or not those charges are actually brought and you’ve identified individuals, I don’t know how legally you say, I pardon anybody who ever did anything. I don’t think that the presidential pardons go that far.
MCD:
If there is another insurrection or set of insurrections, or as they’re talking about armed marches and things like that, are you seeing any indication that there will be more preparation and sort of numbers in terms of law enforcement?
TLF:
Absolutely. I mean, the failures, the absolute failures that we saw in law enforcement will not repeat themselves. I mean, I think the outrage of the country, the outrage of Congress, the outrage of everybody who’s looked at that, both on the Senate side and the House side, the Sergeant of Arms, the Capitol police, they’ve all been, let go, there’ll be a lot of investigation and restructuring coming out of this. And I mean, the day after there was incredible police presence there, and there were the kinds of barricades that keep people out, right. The kind of barricades they had before, were the kinds of things you have at parades–I mean nothing. They weren’t in any way, I mean, you could walk over them. They were so ineffective. I mean, they were like, Oh, please don’t come through here instead of like the barriers. By the time I went back to the Capitol on Thursday, they had erected barriers that would keep people out, and they could have done that from the beginning.
MCD:
Are you going back to DC?
TLF:
I will go back to DC when a vote will be held on the impeachment proceedings, the articles will be filed on Monday and then the house will be called back into session. I will be voting on the impeachment proceedings. I am a co-sponsor of two of the impeachment resolutions.
