Police Officers Who Defended U.S. Capitol On Jan. 6 Slam Trump For Defending Rioters | EUROtoday

Police officers injured on Jan. 6, 2021, harshly criticized former President Donald Trump for lionizing rioters convicted of attacking the Capitol that day.

Appearing at a information convention Monday hosted by President Joe Biden’s re-election marketing campaign, former Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell and D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges questioned Trump’s deal with “law and order” given his vow to pardon folks convicted of storming the U.S. Capitol, a few of whom assaulted cops.

“He can’t claim to support law and order and at the same time support those who tried to upend our democracy,” Gonell mentioned on the occasion, which was held on the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington. “He can’t claim to support law and order and stand at attention saluting the American flag while they play a modified national anthem written by a convicted felon who attacked my co-workers. That’s not leadership; that’s betrayal.”

Hodges referred to as Trump’s salute of a track recorded by Jan. 6 convicts “absolutely mind-blowing,” including that “you can’t claim to be on our side and then promise pardons for violent insurrectionists who assaulted me and my colleagues.”

Over the weekend, Trump, the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee, posted a video on social media that contained the picture of a hog-tied Biden painted on the tailgate of a pickup truck. The Biden marketing campaign slammed Trump over the video, saying he had recommended bodily hurt to the president.

“It’s not the first time and sadly it will not be the last time that Donald Trump chooses to traffic in violence,” Biden marketing campaign spokesman Michael Tyler mentioned on the information convention. “Political violence has been and continues to be central to Donald Trump’s brand of politics.”

Monday’s information convention mirrored the Biden marketing campaign’s broader technique of highlighting Trump’s authoritarian tendencies and his unapologetic embrace of Jan. 6 rioters, whom Trump has praised as “unbelievable patriots.”

Gonell and Hodges have been outspoken critics of Trump for his function on Jan. 6 and of Republicans for “whitewashing” the day’s occasions, as Gonell has mentioned.

“As a police officer defending the Capitol, I fought off the mob of Trump supporters in what resembled a medieval battle,” Gonell wrote in Januarysaying he wound up needing surgical procedure for accidents that led to his retirement in 2022. “It’s infuriating to still hear some of the people I protected spewing conspiracy theories.”

He additionally holds Trump accountable for the accidents he suffered through the riot.

“Our own president set us up,” Gonnell advised HuffPost in 2022.

Trump’s affinity for violent rhetoric and his verbal assaults towards a federal decide overseeing his felony case in New York, together with towards the decide’s daughter, have additionally raised alarms in Congress and within the judiciary. Last week, one other sitting federal decide from Washington harshly criticized Trump’s assaults towards his New York colleague in a dwell cable information interview, one thing that energetic members of the judiciary hardly ever do.

“It’s very disconcerting to have someone making comments about a judge, and it’s particularly problematic when those comments are in the form of a threat, especially if they’re directed at one’s family,” U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton advised CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

“We do these jobs because we’re committed to the rule of law and we believe in the rule of law, and the rule of law can only function effectively when we have judges who are prepared to carry out their duties without the threat of potential physical harm,” he added.