Three police officers who defended the Capitol during the deadly Jan. 6 riot will help President Joe Biden’s campaign in battleground states ahead of next month’s debate between Biden and former President Donald Trump, the campaign announced Tuesday.
Former Sergeant Aquilino Gonell, former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel “Danny” Hodges will campaign in Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and New Hampshire, the campaign said in a press release .
Officials will meet with local elected officials, law enforcement organizations and community members to emphasize what they described as the threat Trump poses to democracy and the “ongoing threat of political violence” if Trump is re-elected, the statement said.
Dunn was joined on Tuesday by former D.C. Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone — who suffered a heart attack and traumatic brain injury after being violently assaulted during the attack on the Capitol — and actor Robert De Niro at a press conference held by Biden campaign outside Manhattan. court where Trump’s hush money trial is taking place.
During the press conference, Dunn argued that Trump continues to pose “the greatest threat” to democracy as he seeks a second presidential term.
“The fight for many of us did not end on January 6, that night when we returned home. The fight still goes on now,” Dunn said. “What happened that day was an attempt to stop, to overturn, an election. Donald Trump is the greatest threat to our democracy and the safety of communities across the country today, he has encouraged and continues to encourage political violence.”
“Political violence is never acceptable. But you have a presidential candidate, you have a presidential candidate, who defends her, who encourages her and supports her,” she added. “We cannot allow this.”
In a statement included in the Biden campaign’s press release, Dunn noted that Trump went so far as to say there will be a “bloodbath” if he loses again and promised to be a dictator on “day one” and pardon the Jan. 6 rioters. . ”
“Donald Trump only cares about Donald Trump, which is why in November, Americans will reject his extremism once and for all and re-elect the only candidate in the race committed to protecting our democracy and defending law enforcement: Joe Biden,” he added.
At the press conference, Fanone recalled being “brutally assaulted” by Capitol rioters on January 6 and emphasized that Trump supporters were “fed by Trump’s lies and the lies of his surrogates, lies that the 2020 election was stolen “.
“Ultimately, this election is about Donald Trump and his vision for the office of President of the United States, not as a public servant who answers to the elected officials, to the people who elected him, but as an authoritarian official who answers to and serves only himself,” said Fanone.
De Niro said he expects a new campaign ad in which he participated reminds Trump supporters of the “danger” the former president represents, condemning the mob that stormed the Capitol and left “death and destruction in their wake.”
“This is why I needed and wanted to be involved in the new Biden-Harris ad, because it shows Trump’s violence and reminds us that he will use violence against anyone who stands in the way of his megalomania and greed,” said De Niro.
The ad, titled “It hit,” features a narration by De Niro, who describes Trump as someone “desperately trying to hold on to power” after losing the 2020 election and running to be a “dictator” in his 2024 campaign.
“Trump wants revenge and nothing will stop him from getting it,” says De Niro in the ad.
The Trump campaign responded to the Biden campaign’s press conference with its own statements to reporters at the same location outside the courthouse. Senior counsel Jason Miller and spokespeople Karoline Leavitt and Steven Cheung maintained that Trump did nothing wrong in the silence case, and repeated their assertions that the trial is an election interference effort by Democrats and that the judge who supervisor, Juan Merchan, is “highly conflicting.”
“They are making a political mockery of all this,” Cheung said. “The fact is that President Trump will win, he will fight these accusations from top to bottom and there is nothing stopping the truth from coming out.”
The three officers publicly detailed their harrowing experiences fighting the Capitol rioters amid then-President Trump’s claims of a fraudulent election and refusal to concede his defeat.
Dunn, a 15-year veteran of the Capitol Police who lost his bid in the Democratic primary for a U.S. House seat in Maryland this month and frequently appeared on cable news programs, gave emotional testimony before a House committee hearing on Jan. 6 and wrote a book about the attack on the Capitol and his life.
Gonell, who suffered injuries as a result of the attack on the Capitol, also testified before the House committee on January 6 about his firsthand account of the violence of the riot. During his testimony, Gonell called the attack an “attempted coup” and recalled that protesters called the police officers traitors and shouted that he should be executed.
Gonell also testified at the trial of Kyle Fitzsimons, who was convicted of assaulting Gonell during the Jan. 6 attack.
Hodges, who testified before the Jan. 6 House Committee, was crushed by a pro-Trump mob inside a tunnel leading to the Capitol during the attack. He sought medical attention following the attack on him at the Capitol, video of which was later shown at the January 6 House Committee public hearings. He also appeared in court for the trial of several Capitol defendants.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
