In a pair of interviews done on MSNBC in recent days, Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who helped defend the Capitol during the Trump-incited mob attack in 2021 and has been very outspoken about his experiences that day, rallied his listeners towards accountability for those responsible for what happened.
“730 days — it’s so long to wait for accountability,” Dunn observed. “I joked around and said if I was the attorney general, I would’ve filed charges on January 7. Luckily, I’m not the attorney general, and we just have to trust that he’s going to do the job and do it correctly. But it is taking a long time. I guess we’ve just got to keep being patient, because what other choice do we have besides to be patient?”
In prepared remarks marking the two-year anniversary of the assault, Attorney General Merrick Garland recently reaffirmed the commitment at the Justice Department to pursuing those involved with what occurred January 6. Elsewhere in the Justice Department, Special Counsel Jack Smith is obtaining further evidence, like documentation in Michigan of someone claiming to be on the Trump legal team and seeking access to election machines and info from southern Nevada authorities regarding the Trump camp seeking the names of individuals on a county ballot tabulation board.
“The ultimate sign of accountability for an elected official is the ballot box,” Dunn added in that interview when asked about the continued role had by more extreme GOP members. “If these people who choose to be willfully ignorant about what happened that day… if their constituents continue to elect them, I think that signals that we have a bigger problem as a country moreso than the person who is in that position. It’s bigger than that one person if these people are continually being elected back to office.”
Trump has confirmed he is running for the Republican presidential nomination for 2024, although there is a long way to go before seeing who will be securing that nod. He hasn’t done much — meaning a rally or the like — to further that campaign since announcing it, and polling, election results, and fundraising data suggest others like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis would have a solid chance against him. “We weren’t just police officers that day,” Dunn added on Sunday morning. “We were also victims of an attack and an assault as people and as a country, and that can’t happen again. And that’s why I’m going on and on to make sure — I can do my part to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Check out Dunn’s interviews below:
