Insurrection probe opens with harrowing police testimony

It was still rejected by most Republican senators who decried it as a poorly veiled attempt by Democrats to harass the twice-impeached but never-convicted Trump.

It was not until the House passed a bill of its own this May — with just 35 Republicans supporting it — that a select committee, not a full-bore commission, was narrowly approved. The select committee gives Democrats a slight edge through solitary subpoena power and the final say in who members may call to appear for testimony.

Congressman Gregory Meeks, a New York Democrat and chair of the House Foreign Affairs committee, recalled in an interview Tuesday that some of McCarthy’s committee picks were the very same legislators who told Americans publicly in the aftermath and despite an abundance of video footage, not to believe their own “lying eyes.” 

“All I can say is there was a chance for them to establish a bipartisan commission and it was McCarthy who turned it down,” Meeks said. “If anyone is trying to play politics with this, it’s Mr. McCarthy.” 

In addition to Metropolitan Police Officers Fanone and Daniel Hodges, U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell and U.S. Capitol Police Private First Class Harry Dunn also testified. 

For Hodges, January 6 was a “battle of inches.” Rioters called Hodges’ mother a whore before the attack went from “peaceful assembly to terrorism,” he said.

The memories of the day flowed from Hodges, including his recollection of a menacing commotion he witnessed as the minutes that morning ticked toward what would be his near-death experience later. 

He saw a Black man, he recalled Tuesday, fleeing from a white man wearing a Trump face mask. Hodges and other officers broke them up before descending on the increasingly overrun Capitol. 

Flags displaying, ‘Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president,’ and other symbols poked above the crowd. Seared into his memory was the image of a ‘Thin Blue Line’ pro-police flag waving above the sea of bodies. 

This was to his “perpetual confusion,” he testified, as he witnessed the mob ignore shouted orders and then beat and mace officers. 

"There will be no healing, there will be no moving on until there is accountability," Officer Hodges tells Kinzinger.

For Dunn, a Black man, he told lawmakers that never in his 13 years of police work had he seen so many people assaulting officers like he had on Jan. 6. The officer described a “sea of people engaged in desperate hand-to-hand fighting,” with insurrectionists covering the Capitol lawn. He saw Confederate flags, Trump flags and the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flags waving. 

Taking a moment to exhale deeply, Dunn testified Tuesday that he and other officers of color endured not just incessant physical attacks but a torrent of racial slurs in the confrontation with insurrectionists, extremists and supporters of the former president.

Never before had he or fellow officers of color experienced such degradation on duty, he told the committee. 

“No one, no one has called me a nigger while I was in uniform defending the U.S. Capitol,” Dunn said. 

Dunn was in shock and, as he ordered rioters to leave, the response from the crowd was the same: “President Trump invited us here. We’re here to stop the steal. Joe Biden is not president. Nobody voted for Joe Biden.” 

“I’m a law enforcement officer, and I do my best to keep politics out of my job. But in this circumstance, I responded, I voted for Joe Biden. Does my vote not count? Am I nobody?” Dunn said. 

Exposing the sweeping viciousness of a day that some lawmakers have painted as a “tourist visit,” Dunn was visibly pained as he reminded the committee of what a fellow officer told him after being confronted by insurrectionists. 

“Put your gun down, and we’ll show you what kind of nigger you are,” Dunn said to an otherwise silent hearing room. 

Gonell testified it was Trump’s responsibility for the “monstrosity” of Jan. 6. The insurrectionists police encountered told them, explicitly, that the former president sent them to disrupt the day, he said. 

“We lost some officers that day, some really good officers, but we held the line because the alternative would have been a disaster,” Gonell said. “We are not asking for medals or recognition. We want justice and accountability.”  

With seven dead, 140 police officers injured and a peaceful transfer of power wildly disrupted after the 2020 election, the probe’s purpose under leadership of Committee Chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, is to explore how the attack unfolded, was organized and funded. 

Congress has met a handful of times since January 6 to explore the intelligence failures leading up to the assault and has received testimony from U.S. intelligence officials as well as officials from the U.S. Capitol Police on why the complex was left glaringly vulnerable despite an abundance of warning signs.

Those hearings have generated more questions than answers however, with FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials acknowledging they had difficulty “discerning constitutionally protected free speech versus actionable credible threats of violence” that littered internet forums in the run up to Jan. 6.

Hodges zeroed in, however, on a key issue still contested about the events of Jan. 6 in Congress: How to define, legally, the actions of those who stormed the Capitol. 

“Some call rioters tourists… why do you call the attackers terrorists?” said Representative Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat. 

Admitting he could see why people might take issue, Hodges read from the U.S. code, in which a terrorist is as someone whose intent is to affect the conduct of a government. 

Where the committee goes from here is up to lawmakers. But the pleas from those who were nearly killed on Jan. 6 was almost identical.  

"I need you to address whether anyone in power had anything to do with this, and whether anyone in power aided or abetted or tried to downplay or prevent the investigation of this terrorist attack,” Hodges said.

After the hearing concluded, Chairman Thompson said he has asked some of the committee members to cut short what would normally be a recess for much of August.

“We now have a body of testimony and we will be in the process of putting that together,” he said. “We asked them what they would like to see and they, without exception, said they would like to know who anticipated it and encouraged it … and part of that is the challenge of this committee.”

Mark Zaid, an attorney for the officers who testified Tuesday, told Courthouse News he was happy to see that the committee is prioritizing the officers’ mental health.

“We are particularly appreciate of the committees’ stated willingness to explore whether the involved law enforcement officers are receiving the mental health counseling they may need and to ensure they have available leave to do so,” Zaid said in an email.

Zaid also noted his hope that the committee reconsider its appointment of David Buckley as staff director — considering the finding by Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General found Buckley unlawfully retaliated against a CIA whistleblower.

“This is the wrong message to send to any whistleblowers and an affront to the lawful system,” he wrote.

Follow Brandi Buchman and Jack Rodgers on Twitter

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