Officer Who Defended Capitol Hits Trump/GOP Over Insurrection Lies

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During a new appearance on MSNBC, D.C. police officer Michael Fanone — who participated in the defense of the Capitol against rioting Trump supporters on January 6 — shredded the recent claim from ex-President Trump that what happened at the Capitol on that fateful January day was defined by “love.” As Trump put it on Fox over the weekend, the “love in the air — I’ve never seen anything like it.” Fanone explained in response just how utterly delusional that Trump’s characterization really is.

Fanone discussed some of the injuries that he personally sustained at the hands of the Trump-supporting crowd that attacked Congress. He is one of scores of officers who were injured by the then-president’s supporters who were there that day. Over 100 Trump supporters have been criminally charged for assaulting law enforcement personnel, and video footage that has emerged from amid the riot reveals exactly what Fanone has been talking about. Officers were assaulted — by Trump supporters — with flag poles and other items. Fanone himself was dragged out of the group of officers he was with and beaten. “That’s reality,” Fanone observed.

As he put it, responding to Trump’s claim that “love” was at the Capitol that day:

‘That’s a lie. Donald Trump’s description of January 6 — pretty much every portion of that statement — is a lie. That was not what I experienced. What I experienced was incredibly brutal hand-to-hand combat. Again, just speaking about my firsthand account, while I fought in the lower west terrace tunnel, I was pulled away from the other officers by members of the crowd. I was beaten. I was tased numerous times at the base of my skull, and as a result of that assault, I sustained a heart attack, traumatic brain injury, and now suffer from PTSD. That’s reality. Those are facts. The assault that occurred to me was documented, memorialized in my body-worn camera footage, and in hundreds of hours of video footage of not just my assault but the assault of other officers.’

Overall, some 140 officers sustained injuries, ranging from broken spinal discs to a stab would inflicted by a metal fence stake. Watch Fanone’s comments on MSNBC below: