WASHINGTON (AP) — Maryland Rep. Jamie Ruskin said Wednesday he has a type of lymphoma, a “serious but curable cancer,” and is beginning months of treatment.
Ruskin, who will be the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Reform Committee in the next Congress, said he expects outpatient care at Washington-area hospitals.
In a statement Wednesday, Raskin said he has diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and that “in my situation, the prognosis is good for most people after four months of treatment.” . .
“I’m still hopeful for the kind that causes hair growth and weight loss,” he joked.
In recent years, Ruskin has played a leading role in House Democrats twice impeaching then-President Donald Trump and investigating Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021 riots. He was the lead impeachment manager when the House impeached Mr Trump a week after his attack and is currently sitting on a House committee investigating the siege. That panel issued its final report last week and is set to dissolve when the new Republican-led House of Representatives is sworn in on January 3.
This is the second time the Maryland Democrat has been diagnosed with cancer, having battled colorectal cancer in 2010. The news comes almost exactly two years after his 25-year-old son, Tommy, committed suicide on December 31, 2020.
Tommy’s death came just a week before the mutiny, and Ruskin took his daughter and son-in-law to the Capitol that day. Ruskin backed Trump’s conviction during the Senate impeachment trial and tearfully spoke of their ordeal. The two hid under a desk as the violence unfolded, and her daughter later said she didn’t want to go back to the Capitol.
“Of all the horrifying and brutal things I’ve seen or heard that day, and since, it struck me the hardest,” Ruskin told a Senate jury, who later acquitted Trump again.
Raskin has written a book, Unthinkable, about overcoming trauma from both events.
“I will get through this and in the meantime continue to move forward every day in Congress for American democracy,” Ruskin said of the recent trial.