During an appearance this weekend on MSNBC’s The Sunday Show, Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn spoke about his experiences of the violence of January 6, including the vitriolic racism that members of the crowd used against Dunn (who is Black) and other non-white personnel who were on the scene that day. Dunn has previously revealed some of these experiences in testimony to Congress, where he explained how, among other troubling incidents, “another Black officer later told me he had been confronted by insurrectionists in the Capitol who told him, ‘Put your gun down, and we’ll show you what kind of n*gger you really are.'”
Make no mistake: Trump incited his supporters to try to overthrow the government once before, and he's going to try it again. Members of Congress have to ask themselves if they're going to just let it happen or if they'll stand up for democracy.
— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) January 2, 2022
As Dunn put it while on MSNBC:
‘There’s so much that went wrong that day, that was so bad about that day, you don’t have to just make it about race, but to act like it wasn’t there or deny it is completely false… We get trained for a lot, going through the police academy. Domestics, how to deal with arguments, conflict resolution — but we’ve never, I’ve never gotten insurrection training. So a lot of it was just based on survival. And just how to make it through that day. A lot of instincts and trusting the person next to you, and I’m glad and happy to say that I work with such a great group of men and women who were able to successfully navigate that day. Because as ugly as that day was, no Congressmen, and women, or their staff were hurt that day, and the mission of Congress was fulfilled.’
Watch Dunn’s comments below:
U.S. Capitol Police officer @libradunn reflects on Jan. 6: “There’s so much that went wrong that day, that was so bad about that day, you don't have to just make it about race, but to act like it wasn't there or deny it is completely false.” #SundayShow pic.twitter.com/jjSUFuVIZ8
— The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart (@TheSundayShow) January 2, 2022
Former President Trump and numerous allies of his are continuing to spread the lies that inspired the attack on the Capitol in the first place. Trump has claimed that the 2020 presidential election was somehow rigged for Biden, and despite the total lack of legitimate evidence for this notion, he’s used it not just to inspire the violence to begin with but to offer explicit attempts at justifying what unfolded. On the day of the riot itself, Trump excusingly said on his long since banned Twitter account that “these are the things and events that happen” when an election is stolen. While the election obviously wasn’t stolen, the looming threat of Trump’s willingness to excuse violence for political ends remains present.
Bennie Thompson says on @CNNSotu they have “significant testimony” the WH “had been told to do something” on Jan 6. Asked if he believes Trump’s actions warrant criminal referral: “We don’t know yet…If there’s a criminal act we believe occurred, we will make the referrral.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 2, 2022
The House committee investigating the Capitol riot is planning more public hearings like the one last year where Dunn and other officers spoke. During an interview on CBS’s Face The Nation this weekend, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — who is on the committee — told host Margaret Brennan that these hearings should be happening in the near future. As he put it, when asked about the planned hearings: “We should begin them, I hope, in a matter of weeks, if not a couple of months from now. And what we expect to do is lay out what we’ve been learning for the American people.” Read more here.
On @ThisWeekABC just now, @Liz_Cheney said the January 6 committee now has “first-hand testimony” confirming Trump was in his private dining room watching TV as the Capitol riot unfolded, as reported in “Betrayal”
— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) January 2, 2022
