Donald Trump’s blanket pardon of Capitol riot convicts — and his decision to commute the sentences of convicted right-wing gang members from the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, some of whom were charged with seditious conspiracy — has been met with shock and frustration from those most affected by the 2021 attack.
Brian Fanone, a former DC Metropolitan police officer who was injured during the Capitol riot and later testified about his experience to the House Select Committee investigating the attack — said he felt “betrayed” by his country following the pardons.
“I have been betrayed by my country, and I’ve been betrayed by those that supported Donald Trump, whether you voted for him because he promised these pardons, or for some other reason, you knew that this was coming. And here we are,” an angry Fanone told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Monday.
He was frustrated at the notion that the men who attacked him and his colleagues were allowed to escape punishment.
“Tonight, six individuals who assaulted me, as I did my job on January 6, as did hundreds of other law enforcement officers, will now walk free,” he said.
Fanone indicated that the Republican Party’s support for law enforcement was a farce.
“I think that Republican Party owns a monopoly on hypocrisy when it comes to supporting or their supposed support of law enforcement, because, tonight, the leader of the Republican Party pardoned hundreds of violent cop assaulters,” he said.
Fanone is one of the individuals who received a preemptive pardon from now-former President Joe Biden before he left office. The pardon is intended to protect him from potential blowback from the Trump administration for speaking out at the House Select hearings.
“All I can say is that I think it’s a sad commentary on where we are as a nation that a sitting president thought it necessary to issue a preemptive pardon to a witness in a congressional investigation, because the subject to that investigation is now the president and had promised to pursue politically motivated revenge. Again, it’s just more examples of the outrageous behavior of the current president of the United States,” Fanone said.
He’s not the only one who affected by the Capitol riots appalled by Trump’s pardons.
Craig Sicknick, the brother of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died soon after the attack, told NJ.com that he felt his brother’s death was cheapened by the pardon.
“I feel that my brother died in vain, and that our nation has a very long and dark road ahead of it,” Craig told the outlet. “As far as I’m concerned, the US just installed its first dictator.”
Another former Capitol Police officer who was present during the riot, Harry Dunn, told MSNBC that Trump’s pardons made him furious.
“It pulls at my heart, it makes me upset, it makes me angry. How could people sit there and watch what happened that day and say they’re okay with what happened?” Dunn said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “Those people aren’t hostages,” as Trump called him,” he added.”Those people that are sitting in jail are people that attacked — assaulted — police officers in the worst, most violent ways.”
More than 140 police officers were injured during the Capitol riots, and the attack indirectly led to the deaths of four Trump supporters and five law enforcement officers.
