Two police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol from an attempted insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, said in Flint on Friday that Michigan is the “epicenter of preserving democracy.”
Harry Dunn, who served in the U.S. Capitol Police, made the comment during a campaign event for Vice President Kamala Harris that also included Daniel Hodges, an officer with the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, and U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Flint).
The riot of former President Donald Trump supporters on Jan. 6 left five dead and 140 police officers injured, as well as almost $3 million in damages to the U.S. Capitol.
Trump falsely claimed during a press conference Thursday that his speech on Jan. 6 drew a bigger audience than Martin Luther King Jr. had when he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
“I’ve spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody has spoken to crowds bigger than me,” Trump said. “If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people, if not, we had more.”
The congressional Jan. 6 committee estimated that Trump’s speech drew 53,000 people, about one-fifth of the 250,000 who are estimated to have attended King’s address.
Kildee called the claim “a patent lie,” adding that “this guy’s obsession with crowd size is some kind of psychosis that he has.”
“But that’s not the real distinction that should be made,” Kildee added.
“Martin Luther King called this country to a higher purpose,” Kildee said. “He called upon us to have our voices heard, but in a non-violent manner. Peaceful protest. That’s powerful.
“To contrast that with what Donald Trump did, forget the crowd size, what was the motivation, what was the intent? Dr. King’s intent was to spread love and to bring us together to overcome our problems. Donald Trump’s intent was to foment violence, to support his ego and to gain power,” Kildee continued. “Forget the crowd size. There’s a moral difference that is bigger than any other distinction that could be drawn with that particular comparison.”
Dunn retired from the police force in December to run for Congress in Maryland, ultimately finishing second in his primary. But he said he never expected to be anything other than an officer.
“I thought that I was going to be a police officer for the rest of my working life, and I’m not, and I blame Donald Trump for that. If Jan. 6 didn’t happen, nobody knows who I am,” Dunn said.
Hodges, who is still a police officer in Washington, D.C., noted that people may recognize him from footage from Jan. 6 that shows him being beaten by rioters, some of whom tried to gouge his eye out, while being pushed against a wall.
U.S. Capitol police officers point their guns at a door that was vandalized in the House Chamber during a joint session of Congress on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Congress held a joint session today to ratify President-elect Joe Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. A group of Republican senators said they would reject the Electoral College votes of several states unless Congress appointed a commission to audit the election results. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images
“If you’re a police officer, you don’t do it for attention. If you make the news as a police officer, it’s a bad day,” Dunn said. “I hate that people know who I am. I hate that.”
But Hodges said he feels it is his duty to speak out because, three years later, some Republican officials and candidates continue “peddling these lies, this disinformation, and whitewashing the events of that day to try and make it seem like there was no insurrection, or that it was a trap set by the government or that it was Antifa that did it.”
“I’m here because I’m a living primary source for a very historical event, and I have a moral obligation to see that people understand the truth,” Hodges said. “As long as people are out there spreading these lies, I’m going to come out and say, ‘No, that’s not true. That’s not what happened.’”
Kildee said that while Dunn has retired from the police force and Hodges was speaking in his personal capacity, both officers are honoring the oath they took by sharing their stories.
“Both of these gentlemen have been willing to not just stand as heroes on Jan. 6, but also do what’s necessary to make sure Jan. 6 never happens again,” Kildee said. “They’re still doing the job, in a different way, that they swore an oath to do – that is to protect and to serve.”
Kildee was in the gallery of the House chamber on Jan. 6 preparing to defend Michigan’s electoral votes from any challenges by Republican members of Michigan’s delegation when rioters entered the building, trapping him and others who couldn’t jump down to the floor of the chamber to evacuate with others and had access to the upper floors cut off by the mob.
Kildee, who is retiring after his current term, credited Dunn and Hodges with saving his life.
“You guys took the hit, and you held the line as long as you could until we were able to get out,” Kildee said. “This has been traumatic for a lot of us.”
Asked whether Trump and his rhetoric might undergo unexpected changes, as the officers experienced, in response to his own trauma of having a bullet graze his ear in an apparent assassination attempt, Dunn said he wasn’t convinced.
“He said he was going to change. We saw how long that lasted: 47 minutes, maybe,” Dunn said. “Add that to the list of broken promises or misdeeds. If he says it, I probably don’t believe it.”
“Donald Trump, as a candidate for president, has made it crystal clear that he stands with the Jan. 6 insurgents, to the extent that he would pardon them, to the extent that they have a Jan. 6 choir that they used to celebrate an insurgency against the United States of America as if that is some sort of moment to be proud of.”
“That’s weird,” one attendee interjected, echoing a line from Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“That is weird,” Kildee agreed. “These are some weird people.”
Dunn pointed out that, if Trump were to follow through on pardoning Jan. 6 rioters, it would be “a felon pardoning felons.”
“The felon is the one issuing the pardons. It would be laughable if it wasn’t a possibility,” Dunn said.
He added that felons are not allowed to own firearms, but, if elected for a second term, Trump would have access to nuclear codes.
Hodges said Trump could have pardoned the rioters while he was still president but wanted to assess the fallout of the insurrection attempt.
“Donald Trump’s guiding star is whatever benefits him at that point,” Hodges said. He could have pardoned everyone on Jan. 7, but he didn’t, I think because he wanted to see how the rest of the world was going to react to his attempt, and our institutions failed us. There are good people in positions of power trying to hold him accountable, there are also people with questionable morals in positions of power who prevented that from happening.”
Kildee said moderate Republicans who either did not speak out against Trump or stopped him from facing consequences – such as in the case of then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) not holding hearings after the House voted to impeach Trump a second time – “more insidious than the overtly nutty ones.”
“Refusing to take action is in and of itself a choice,” Hodges said. “When these people refuse to speak up in defense of the truth, it just demonstrates a breathtaking void of integrity, shocking absence of a backbone. They are just, as if they were screaming it explicitly, saying that they value their job more than the truth.”
Victoria LaCivita, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign in Michigan, noted that the Police Officers Association of Michigan has endorsed the former president’s bid for a second term.
“Dangerously liberal Kamala Harris is as anti-law enforcement as it gets,” LaCivita said of the former San Francisco district attorney California attorney general and U.S. senator.
But Kildee said that in the Nov. 5 general election, “we all now are facing our own version of Jan. 6.”
“This time we see them coming. We have the warning that they’re on their way,” Kildee said.
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