In an appearance on MSNBC this week, Sandra Garza — the longtime romantic partner of the late Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick — criticized Republican Senators over their behavior surrounding a bill that recently came up for a vote in the Senate and would have created an independent commission to investigate the January Capitol riot. Sicknick died — of what the D.C. medical examiner has ruled were natural causes — very soon after participating in the defense of the Capitol during that riot. Republicans filibustered the investigation bill.
Garza and the late officer’s mother, Gladys Sicknick, met with Republican Senators to push for support of the independent commission proposal prior to the bill recently coming up for consideration in the Senate, and Garza says that the refusal by some Republicans to even meet with them “speaks volumes about them as people and their character.” Troublingly, Garza also said that one of the Republican Senators with whom she did get a chance to meet “actually gently pushed [her] out the door” after the meeting concluded, which she said was “not an exaggeration.” These are the kinds of people in positions of power among the Republicans.
Garza pointedly commented as follows:
‘Brian was a Republican. He did support Donald Trump, and I actually stated earlier that I supported Donald Trump myself, and so, it was very disappointing to know that Donald Trump did not reach out to me, or to Brian’s family, to offer his condolences after Brian passed away. He never sent a letter. He never uttered a peep. And then when Gladys and I went to Capitol Hill to meet with these Senators, some of them were very polite, and they respectfully disagreed. Others were downright rude. One actually gently pushed me out the door as I was leaving, and that’s not an exaggeration… I think they were just doing it to check off a box. The ones who refused to meet with us — it speaks volumes about them as people and their character.’
Check out Garza’s remarks below:
"One actually gently pushed me out the door as I was leaving," says
Sandra Garza, partner of fallen Capitol officer Sicknick, on meeting with GOP senators."[Brian] having been a Capitol police officer, and they would be that callous and dismissive—it's really unbelievable." pic.twitter.com/DbosLWDWKB
— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) June 10, 2021
Garza recently called out Trump more directly, saying on CNN that “for [Trump] to say he loves America, that he’s a patriot — it’s disgusting” — which definitely seems pretty blunt! Garza added that “the patriots are people like Rep. Liz Cheney, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, and all the Senators that voted yes” on the bill to create an independent investigative commission to examine the Capitol riot.
Watch those remarks from Garza below:
