Some thoughts from yesterday. A thread:

I have spent 23 years at The @nytimes, seven of them covering Congress. I made my home at a desk in the press gallery off the Senate chamber. I felt privileged to do so. I consider the Capitol sacred space. 1/

I have been there for any number of historic moments. The funeral of Ronald Reagan, a few years after 9/11, when the building had to be cleared in a panic because the governor of Kentucky flew his plane too close to the Capitol and the police thought it was a terrorist attack. 2/

The confirmation of Supreme Court justices, including John Roberts, the chief. The swearing in of Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker of the House. Twice. The impeachment of President Trump. I still have my own handwritten tally of the vote to acquit. I bore witness. 3/

I know that building inside and out. I know (or once knew) where the bathtubs in the basement are. They were put there in to the 1800s because senators didn’t have tubs in their own homes. The Senate historian once gave me a tour. 4/

I know where they keep the Lincoln catafalque – the funeral bier, or platform, that has held the casket of every person who has lain in state since Lincoln. It's housed behind a locked gate in a little alcove underneath the crypt, the circular room underneath the Rotunda. 5/