Daily
Political Briefing
‘A hit man sent them.’ Police at the Capitol
recount the horrors of Jan. 6 as the inquiry begins.
Video
TRANSCRIPT
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‘Telling
the Truth Shouldn’t Be Hard’: Officers Testify About Jan. 6 Riot
Four
officers who defended the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot testified to House
lawmakers. The officers described in dramatic detail what they witnessed, and
asked for a thorough investigation into what led to the attack.
“More than
six months later, Jan. 6 still isn’t over for me. I’ve had to avail myself of
multiple counseling sessions from the Capitol Police employee assistance
program, and I’m now receiving private counseling therapy for the persistent
emotional trauma of that day.” Lawmaker: “You hear former President Trump say,
quote, ‘It was a loving crowd, there was a lot of love in the crowd.’ How does
that make you feel?” “It’s upsetting, it’s a pathetic excuse for his behavior,
for something that he himself helped to create.” “Telling the truth shouldn’t
be hard. Fighting for — fighting on Jan. 6, that was hard. Showing up Jan. 7,
that was hard. The 8th, the 9th, the 10th, all the way till today, that was
hard.” “I just remember getting violently assaulted from every direction, and
eventually found myself out — probably about 250, maybe 300 feet away from the
mouth of the tunnel where the other officers were at.” “Once, we lost ground, I
was unable to retreat. I was crushed up against the doorframe. And, and then my
most vulnerable moments — the man in front of me took advantage and beat me in
the head, ripped off my gas mask, straining my neck, skull.” “And normally in
under any other circumstances, we just stay shut, we don’t talk about politics.
We don’t talk about what happened to us. But this is bigger than that.” “That
is what I am looking for, is an investigation into those actions and
activities, which may have resulted in the events of Jan. 6, and also whether
or not there was collaboration between those members, their staff and these
terrorists.” “It was political. They literally were there to ‘stop the steal.’
So when people say it shouldn’t be political, it is, it was and it is — there’s
no getting around that.” “You guys are the only ones we’ve got to deal with
crimes that occur above us. I need you guys to address if anyone in power had a
role in this.”
By Luke
Broadwater and Nicholas Fandos
July 27,
2021
WASHINGTON
— One officer described how rioters attempted to gouge out his eye and called
him a traitor as they sought to invade the Capitol.
Another
told of being smashed in a doorway and nearly crushed amid a “medieval” battle
with a pro-Trump mob as he heard guttural screams of pain from fellow officers.
A third
said he was beaten unconscious and stunned repeatedly with a Taser as he
pleaded with his assailants, “I have kids.”
A fourth
relayed how he was called a racist slur over and over again by intruders
wearing “Make America Great Again” garb.
“All of
them — all of them were telling us, ‘Trump sent us,’” Aquilino A. Gonell, a
U.S. Capitol Police sergeant, said on Tuesday as he tearfully recounted the
horrors of defending Congress on Jan. 6, testifying at the first hearing of a
House select committee to investigate the attack.
One by one,
in excruciating detail, Sergeant Gonell and three other officers who faced off
with the hordes that broke into the Capitol told Congress of the brutal
violence, racism and hostility they suffered as a throng of angry rioters,
acting in the name of President Donald J. Trump, beat, crushed and shocked
them.
More than
six months after the assault, the accounts of the four uniformed officers — as
precise as they were cinematic — cut through a fog of confusion, false
equivalence and misdirection that Republicans have generated to try to insulate
themselves politically and placate Mr. Trump.
They
provided a set of gripping first-person narratives that brought home the
harrowing events of Jan. 6, when Mr. Trump’s supporters, urged on by his lie of
a stolen election, stormed the Capitol to disrupt the official counting of
electoral votes to formalize President Biden’s victory.
House
Republican leaders who have opposed efforts to investigate the assault
boycotted the inquiry and dismissed it as a partisan ploy, so they were absent
as the officers relived their trauma in a Capitol Hill hearing room.
“This
nigger voted for Joe Biden!” Officer Harry Dunn of the Capitol Police told the
panel a rioter had screamed at him, prompting a crowd to turn on him with
shouts of “Boo! Fucking nigger!”
Later,
Officer Dunn begged the lawmakers leading the inquiry to uncover the full
extent of Mr. Trump’s role.
“There was
an attack on Jan. 6, and a hit man sent them,” he said. “I want you to get to
the bottom of that.”
Representative
Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a leading critic of Mr. Trump and one of two Republicans
named by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve on the panel, used the proceedings to
chastise her G.O.P. colleagues for refusing to investigate the worst attack on
Congress in centuries.
“Will we be
so blinded by partisanship that we throw away the miracle of America?” Ms.
Cheney demanded. “Do we hate our political adversaries more than we love our
country and revere our Constitution?”
The two top
congressional Republicans later said they had been too busy with other work to
watch.
The
testimony, punctuated by video montages of the rampage — including some footage
from the body cameras of police officers who testified — was a riveting
reminder of the brutal reality of the day. In the hearing room and across
Capitol Hill, officers, lawmakers and aides who lived through the riot were
glued to cellphone or television screens watching it unfold.
“A violent
mob was pointed toward the Capitol and told to win a trial by combat,”
Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the
panel, said as he opened the session. “Some descended on this city with clear
plans to disrupt our democracy. One rioter said that they weren’t there to
commit violence, but that, and I’m quoting, ‘We were just there to overthrow
the government.’”
The refusal
by most Republicans to participate in the hearing was just the latest
indication of how a party that portrays itself as the champion of law
enforcement has worked to thwart attempts to investigate the attack.
“We still
don’t know exactly what happened,” said Representative Adam Kinzinger of
Illinois, the other Republican afforded a seat on the panel by Ms. Pelosi.
“Why? Because many in my party have treated this as just another partisan
fight. It’s toxic, and it’s a disservice to the officers’ families.”
Fearing its
political implications for their party, Republicans succeeded in blocking the
creation of an independent, bipartisan panel in the style of the 9/11
commission to handle the inquiry and fiercely opposed the creation of the
select committee. Then, after Ms. Pelosi refused to seat two Trump allies put
forward by Republicans — both of whom had amplified the former president’s
false claims of election fraud and disparaged the inquiry — the House
Republican leader, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, said his
members would simply not participate.
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McCarthy
Slams Democrats’ Handling of Jan. 6 Riot Investigation
In remarks
before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot hearing, Representative Kevin McCarthy, the
minority leader, said Republicans wanted the focus of the inquiry to be on the
lack of preparation for the violence and ways to prevent future attacks.
We’re not
predetermining any questions. We’d like to be on the committee to ask them.
You’ve got a committee chair that questioned the election of George Bush.
You’ve got a committee chair of this who is suing the president. You’ve got a
committee chair of this who believes Republican senators are equal to
terrorists, and they should be on the terrorist watch list. You’ve got a member
of Raskin — before the president was even sworn in, said he should be
impeached, who questioned the election before and objected to the electors
there. Two questions for this entire committee should be: Why were we so ill
prepared for that day? And how can we make sure this never happens again? And
that’s what should drive the committee. There may be buildup before that day
that you’re going to have to investigate. Speaker Pelosi worked six months
trying to make sure that would never happen. We had an officer killed on Good
Friday, just across here. Based upon if you listen to who made the killing, of
buying the knife — it was politically motivated, but we’re not going to
investigate that. You have the F.B.I. doing investigations. Want to make sure
nothing in this committee gets in the way of that. You have an architect of the
Capitol that has been appropriated $10 million to make sure this is better
prepared. Why wouldn’t we then ask the tough questions and make sure the
Capitol Police have the resources, the training and the equipment? That is
what’s being withheld and that’s what we complain about.
In remarks
before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot hearing, Representative Kevin McCarthy, the
minority leader, said Republicans wanted the focus of the inquiry to be on the
lack of preparation for the violence and ways to prevent future
attacks.CreditCredit...J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
Instead,
Mr. McCarthy called his own event in the shadow of the Capitol before the
hearing to try to pre-empt the officers’ testimony and divert blame for the assault
onto Democrats. Ignoring those who organized, encouraged and carried out the
attack, he and other Republicans faulted Ms. Pelosi, who on Jan. 6 was forced
to flee the Capitol as armed members of the mob roamed the corridors calling
out, “Where are you, Nancy?”
“Nancy
Pelosi bears responsibility as speaker of the House for the tragedy that
occurred on Jan. 6,” said Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, who became
the House’s No. 3 Republican when the party ousted Ms. Cheney from the position
for speaking out against Mr. Trump.
Congressional
leaders hire the law enforcement personnel responsible for Capitol security,
but are typically not involved in day-to-day decisions about security
protocols. Security at the Capitol is controlled by the Capitol Police Board,
which includes the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms and the architect of the
Capitol.
While the
hearing was underway, senators announced that they had reached a bipartisan
deal on a supplemental spending bill to repay the National Guard for its
deployment costs, pump $100 million into the embattled Capitol Police and
allocate another $300 million to harden defenses at the Capitol.
Even as the
police officers testified about having been brutalized by the rioters, a group
of far-right Republicans was publicly siding with those who breached the
Capitol. Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Matt Gaetz of
Florida, Paul Gosar of Arizona and Louie Gohmert of Texas held a news
conference outside the Justice Department to object to the treatment of the
rioters charged in connection with the attack, calling them “Jan. 6 prisoners”
who had been mistreated because of their political beliefs.
Both Mr.
McCarthy and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the top Senate Republican,
said they had not watched the hearing. Pressed to address those within his
party seeking to deny or distort the attack, Mr. McConnell merely pointed back
to comments he made last winter, shortly after orchestrating Mr. Trump’s
impeachment acquittal on the charge that he incited an insurrection, when he
said Mr. Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for it.
Understand the Removal of Liz Cheney
House
Republicans voted on May 12 to oust Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming from
their leadership ranks for her refusal to stay quiet about President Donald J.
Trump’s election lies.
Backlash to
Impeachment Vote: In January, Ms. Cheney issued a stinging statement announcing
that she would vote to impeach Mr. Trump. In the statement, which drove a
fissure through her party, she said that there had “never been a greater
betrayal by a president of the United States” than Mr. Trump’s incitement of a
mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. She was among 10 Republicans who voted
to impeach him. A group of Mr. Trump’s most strident allies in the House called
on her to resign from her leadership post.
Leadership
Challenge: In February, Ms. Cheney fended off a challenge to strip her of her
leadership position in a secret ballot vote. Even as a majority of House
Republicans opposed impeaching Mr. Trump, most were not prepared to punish one
of their top leaders for doing so — at least not under a blanket of anonymity.
Censure:
Ms. Cheney also faced opposition from the Wyoming Republican Party, which
censured her and demanded she resign. Ms. Cheney rejected those calls and urged
Republicans to be “the party of truth.”
New
Challenge: Ms. Cheney continued her blunt condemnation of Mr. Trump and her
party’s role in spreading the false election claims that inspired the Jan. 6
attack, prompting a new push to oust her from her leadership role. This time,
the effort was backed by Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader.
Removal:
Ms. Cheney framed her expulsion as a turning point for her party and declared
in an extraordinary speech that she would not sit by quietly as Republicans
abandoned the rule of law. She embraced her downfall and offered herself as a
cautionary tale in what she is portraying as a battle for the soul of the
Republican Party. The removal came by voice vote during a brief but raucous
closed-door meeting in an auditorium on Capitol Hill.
Impact and
Analysis: What began as a battle over the party’s future after the violent end
to the Trump presidency has collapsed into a one-sided pile-on by Team Trump
against critics like Ms. Cheney, a scion of a storied Republican family. The
episode, a remarkable takedown that reflected the party’s intolerance for
dissent and unswerving fealty to the former president, has called attention to
internal party divisions between more mainstream and conservative factions
about how to win back the House in 2022.
Successor:
On May 14, House Republicans elected Representative Elise Stefanik of New York,
a vocal defender of Mr. Trump, as their No. 3 leader. Ms. Stefanik pledged to
maintain a focus “on unity” as conference chair, but she has also drawn
criticism from some hard-right Republicans who have questioned her conservative
bona fides.
“I don’t
see how I could have expressed myself more forthrightly than I did on that
occasion, and I stand by everything I said,” said Mr. McConnell, who later led
the Republican effort to block an independent bipartisan investigation of the
riot.
Senator
John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Senate Republican, called the officers
“heroes,” and said, “We should listen to what they have to say.” Like Mr.
McConnell, Mr. Thune helped marshal Republican opposition to the investigation.
The only
two Republicans who appeared eager for answers about the assault were Mr.
Kinzinger and Ms. Cheney, who greeted the officers warmly in the hearing room,
gripping their hands and embracing them.
Ms. Cheney
said the panel should move quickly to issue subpoenas to uncover any potential
ties between the rioters and the Trump administration and campaign. Lawmakers
must learn “what happened every minute of that day in the White House: every
phone call, every conversation, every meeting leading up to, during and after
the attack,” she said.
After the
hearing, Mr. Thompson said that subpoenas would be issued “soon” and that
another hearing could come within weeks.
But on
Tuesday, the focus was on the nightmare experienced by the police officers who
responded that day.
Michael
Fanone, a Washington police officer who was beaten unconscious and subjected to
repeated shocks with his own Taser by the mob, suffering a heart attack and a
brain injury, said he heard rioters calling for him to be killed with his own
gun.
Lawmakers
played Officer Fanone’s body camera video, in which he could be heard pleading
for mercy — “I have kids,” he muttered — before being carried off by fellow
officers and losing consciousness.
“I feel
like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room,”
Officer Fanone said. “But too many are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist,
or that hell wasn’t actually that bad.”
“The
indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful,” he added, his voice rising
to a shout as he pounded the witness table in anger.
Sergeant
Gonell said what he went through on Capitol Hill that day had been more
fearsome than any experience patrolling bomb-infested roads during an Army
deployment in Iraq, denouncing what he called a “continuous, shocking attempt
to ignore or try to destroy the truth of what truly happened.”
Officer
Daniel Hodges, another member of the Washington police, described how the mob
descended into “terrorism,” booing and mocking the police as they hoisted
American, Christian and Trump flags. He said he had been crushed in a door,
bashed in the head and nearly had an eye gouged out.
“To my
perpetual confusion, I saw the thin-blue-line flag — the symbol of support for
law enforcement — more than once being carried by the terrorists as they
ignored our commands and continued to assault us,” Officer Hodges said.
Emily
Cochrane, Catie Edmondson and Jonathan Weisman contributed reporting.
Luke
Broadwater covers Congress. He was the lead reporter on a series of
investigative articles at the Baltimore Sun that won a Pulitzer Prize and a
George Polk Award in 2020. @lukebroadwater
Nicholas
Fandos is congressional correspondent, based in Washington. He has covered
Capitol Hill since 2017, chronicling two Supreme Court confirmation fights, two
historic impeachments of Donald J. Trump, and countless bills in between. @npfandos
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