Insurrectionists on Jan. 6, 2021 attacked Capitol Police.Michael Nigro/Sipa/AP
After President Donald Trump issued late-night pardons and commutations to every one of the 1,600 rioters who carried out the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, police officers who were there that day, and their loved ones, are calling out Trump’s betrayal.
Aquilino Gonell, a former Capitol Police sergeant who earlier this month recounted in a New York Times essay being “beaten and struck by raging rioters all over my body with multiple weapons until I was covered in my own blood,” posted on X on Sunday: “The law and order dude is about to pardon those who assaulted the police. Collectively more than 40 rioters attacked me that day.”
When Gonell testified before the House Select Committee that investigated the attacks, he described how he and his colleagues were “punched, pushed, kicked, shoved, sprayed with chemical irritants, and even blinded with eye-damaging lasers by a violent mob who apparently saw us law enforcement officers, dedicated to ironically protecting them as US citizens, as an impediment in their attempted insurrection.” He added he had sustained injuries all over his body that required surgeries.
Michael Fanone, a former DC police officer who previously testified about being “grabbed, beaten, tased, all while being called a traitor to my country” on Jan. 6, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday night: “I have been betrayed by those that supported Donald Trump. Whether you voted for him because he promised these pardons or for some other reason, you knew that this was coming, and here we are.”
He added that Trump’s pardons would free six of the people who attacked him on Jan. 6. “My family, my children, and myself are less safe today because of Donald Trump and his supporters,” Fanone told Cooper, echoing the concerns of those who turned in attackers to law enforcement, now worried that Trump’s pardons will prompt retaliation against them.
“I have been betrayed by my country”: Former DC police officer Michael Fanone talks to Anderson after President Trump pardons more than 1,000 convicted of committing crimes during the January 6 attack on the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/fhN3dhqbPz
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) January 21, 2025
“I think that Republican Party owns a monopoly on hypocrisy when it comes to supporting or their supposed support of law enforcement, because, tonight, the leader of the Republican Party pardoned hundreds of violent cop assaulters,” Fanone said.
And Craig Sicknick, the brother of Brian Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer who died a day after the Jan. 6 attack, reportedly of natural causes, told ABC News the pardons were “a betrayal of decency.”
“The man doesn’t understand the pain or suffering of others. He can’t comprehend anyone else’s feelings,” Sicknick told ABC. “We now have no rule of law,” he added. (The Capitol Police say Brian Sicknick was assaulted by rioters, including by being attacked with pepper spray. The medical examiner who determined his cause of death later told the Washington Post, “all that transpired played a role in his condition.”)
Trump’s pardons, and law enforcement’s condemnations of them, are especially rich considering that Trump has claimed to be “the law and order candidate.” As a reminder, the insurrectionists injured approximately 140 law enforcement officials on Jan. 6, 2021, including about 80 from the Capitol Police and about 60 from the Metropolitan Police Department, according to the Department of Justice. And five police officers who had been at the Capitol died, including four who died of suicide in the days and months after.
Spokespeople for Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones on Tuesday.