Michael Fanone, a former officer with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department who participated in the defense of the Capitol during last year’s Trump-incited mob attack, condemned GOP cowardice during a new appearance on CBS in connection with his new book.
Party leaders were directly connected to what happened at the Capitol, including the violent assaults on scores of police officers including Fanone, who likely almost died, and yet, there has been no push within the GOP for accountability over the incident. Isolated instances of officials in the party speaking out haven’t led to anything on a systematic scale across the party. “I continue to talk about it because I haven’t accomplished what I set out to accomplish, which was accountability for those that were responsible for January 6,” Fanone said on CBS Mornings. “And also for acknowledgement for the officers that fought at the Capitol that day to preserve democracy… I am deeply grateful for the officers that were there with me in the Lower West Terrace tunnel, and I’m out here trying to represent them as best I can and make sure that their sacrifices that day don’t go unnoticed.”
Fanone has previously testified to Congress about the injuries he sustained at the Capitol during the Trump-incited attack last January. He was dragged into the crowd, beaten, and repeatedly shocked with a stun gun, suffering a heart attack, concussion, and traumatic brain injury. He was attacked in the same area at the Capitol where fellow officers including Daniel Hodges and Aquilino Gonell were also injured during that day’s fighting. A Capitol riot participant who provided another rioter with a stun gun that the latter used against Fanone moments later was recently sentenced to over seven years in prison. More recently, Fanone has revealed audio recordings he made of private meetings with Republican officials including House GOP leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) — the latter of whom apparently suggested officers should have shot the rioters. McCarthy at times sounded dismissive and defensive of then-President Trump.
“I don’t know if he was trying to be funny or what,” Fanone remarked of Graham. “But he did kind of fly off the handle and say that he gave us guns and that we should have shot all these protesters in the head… I told him I appreciated his enthusiasm, but there is very specific guidelines that dictate law enforcement’s use of force… [Deadly force] would not have been practical in that type of an environment… When you have a sitting U.S. Senator that doesn’t even understand basic police policy, that’s a problem.” Fanone mentioned how one issue with using lethal force that day would have been people potentially caught in the crossfire, since so many people were gathered so closely together. He also discussed the prospect of further violence like what happened at the Capitol if that day’s events aren’t the subject of serious accountability. There is another public hearing of the House panel investigating the Capitol riot scheduled for this week. Check out Fanone’s new CBS Mornings interview below:
