Police officers attacked on Capitol Hill condemn Trump's pardons to January 6 attackers

Former police personnel who were posted at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, have condemned President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon people who attacked the Capitol that day to hijack the Senate proceedings.

On Jan. 6, 2021, as the Senate was certifying the 2020 presidential result, a mob of supporters egged on by Trump stormed the US Capitol to hijack the certification and illegally overturn the election in his favour. Even though his supporters breached the Capitol’s defences, they could not overturn the election.

Now, on his first day in office in the second term, Trump has pardoned all of nearly 1,600 people accused and convicted of various offences related to the assault on the US Capitol. Three persons, including one policeman and two Trump supporters, were killed that day directly during the attack on the Capitol. Overall, more than 150 police personnel were injured that day.

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Harry Dunn, a former policeman, dubbed the pardons as a “betrayal to the officers who were severely injured –and died– as a result of the insurrection”, according to The Guardian.

Dunn further said that pardons “a reflection of what abuse of power looks like and what we the people are bound to witness over the next four years”.

Another former Capitol Police officer, Aquilino Gonell, called the pardons a “miserable miscarriage of justice” and added that “the scars of January 6, 2021 are seared in my mind and body, and I will never truly recover from the events of that day”, according to the newspaper.

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Both the policemen testified before the Congressional inquiry into the Jan. 6 attack and were granted last-minute pre-emptive pardons by former President Joe Biden to safeguard them from retribution from Trump.