Fmr Capitol Police Officer on Trump & Jan 6: “There’s Been No Accountability”

MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Bianna, thanks. Harry Dunn, thanks so much for joining us. For a lot of us January 6th is some years in the past. What’s it for you?

HARRY DUNN, FORMER CAPITOL POLICE OFFICER: Same. It’s hard to believe that it’s been four years. And, you know, here we are, and it’s unfortunate for me that the person responsible for January 6th, 2021 will be taking office January 20th, 2025. It’s unfortunate and it’s still, like I said, four years ago, but it’s still current, present day for so many people also.

MARTIN: You know, you wrote a book last year called “Standing My Ground,” and you talked about out of our need to just discuss maybe a collective trauma that the whole country experienced, but we’re all processing it differently.

DUNN: With regard to my book, you know, I was one of hundreds of officers there that day, you know. If you ask a hundred officers, tell me your story from January 6th, you get a hundred different stories. And that was just a way of, you know, memorializing mine. Telling my story, what I went through. But talking about the trauma that we all went through, everybody was affected in some capacity that day. The police officers, we had, our trauma was the physical trauma. We absorbed that physical abuse that so many rioters that day assaulted police officers. But just a voter in Missouri, or a voter in South Dakota, somebody who voted for Joe Biden, we protected that vote because the objective, according to the rioters, their objective that day was to stop the steal, stop the certification of the election. That certification of the election was made up of all the millions of people around the country who voted in a free and fair election. So we were preserving that vote too. So that day wasn’t just an attack on police officers, it was an attack on one, the peaceful transfer of power, people’s free and fair votes. And we stood up that day. And I’m proud of the work my coworkers did that day.

MARTIN: Here we are now, years after that, and President Donald Trump is gonna be back in office. And one of the things that he had promised on the campaign trail or talked about a lot was pardoning all the people who have been under criminal charges from the events of January 6th. What goes through your mind when you hear that?

DUNN: Like you said, he was promising it from the, from the jump. That’s one of the reasons why I was out on the campaign trail pushing back against that, tried to educate voters what’s at stake. So I had an opportunity to kind of soften the blow ’cause I knew it was coming. However, it’s a slap in the face. You know, the people, it, there was recently, I can’t remember the publication that did it, but it was a study that showed that the people that are in jail that are, there aren’t political prisoners and hostages. A lot of people that were convicted of trespassing or entering the capitol, they got probation or a fine, they weren’t imprisoned. And the people that are in prison assaulted police officers, committed acts of violence. They were the most dangerous people that were there that day. And that’s almost unforgivable, a pardon to those individuals. However, if there is one slight thing that, you know, you can hang your head on, the people, their convictions, they don’t get overturned. You’re just forgiven by the president. A jury of their peers, they had their day in court, they were found guilty. And if I could hold my hat on anything, the juries did their jobs and did what they, their responsibility and held those people accountable.

MARTIN: What do you think this does to just this idea of accountability? You know, the rule of law has been something that the Republican party and conservatives in general have stood by for quite some time. And here we have a scenario where people who clearly broke the law are likely to be pardoned. What, you know, how does that compute for you as somebody who works for so many years to defend the constitution and the physical capital itself?

DUNN: Yeah. So one of the things that I’ve spoken about ad nauseam was about accountability. The reason why the people on January 6th were there, they were emboldened by the most powerful person in the world, arguably. The president of the United States. So if the president tells you to go do something, then you’d be like, okay, the president told me I can go do that. A lot of the people while they were there at the Capitol, say, we were telling them to leave, and they said, no, the president told us to come here. And there’s been no accountability for that. So what is to stop that from ever happening again? The people that committed those acts on January 6th, what’s to stop them from doing it again at the end of Donald Trump’s current term that’s coming up in 2029. What’s to stop them from doing that again? What’s to stop Donald Trump from committing those acts again? There’s been no accountability. There’s been nothing that said, Hey, you were wrong. You can’t do this. And the ultimate accountability, it wasn’t by the courts, it wasn’t by a body of Congress or institution. It was the American voters who had the opportunity to reject him and hold him accountable at the ballot box. And we failed to do so, and we failed to do so. So, you know, it’s unfortunate, but it seems like it didn’t matter enough to people.

MARTIN: You know, there was a recent poll from the University of Maryland that said 60% of Republicans, and only 10% of Democrats support president Trump pardoning the folks from January 6th. And I wonder, you know, when you see data like that, and given the benefit of time now, and as you say, the entire electorate had an opportunity to, if January 6th was important enough an event to disqualify someone from being president, they had the opportunity to exercise that vote. And that didn’t happen. Right? So as a former law enforcement officer, as a citizen, what does that make you think?

DUNN: It was a slap in the face. It was like a gut, a gut punch. What me and my coworkers went through, it just wasn’t enough. And, you know, I take it personal. That’s why I did all the work that I could do to help elect Kamala Harris. It didn’t go the way we wanted it to go. I can assure you that it won’t be Kamala Harris or Joe Biden’s supporters storming the capitol in protest of, you know, their, the, our candidate not winning the election. But it just felt like a gut punch. Enough people just didn’t care. So it’s kind of like the indifference of a lot of people is causing in creating this situation that we’re in now,

MARTIN: It was a slap in the face. It was like a gut, a gut punch. What me and my coworkers went through, it just wasn’t enough. And, you know, I take it personal. That’s why I did all the work that I could do to help elect Kamala Harris. It didn’t go the way we wanted it to go. I can assure you that it won’t be Kamala Harris or Joe Biden’s supporters storming the capitol in protest of, you know, their, the, our candidate not winning the election. But it just felt like a gut punch. Enough people just didn’t care. And not just the people that voted for him, you said 60% and 10%, 60% of Republicans, 10% the Democrats, there were over 20 million people that sat out this election that participated in the previous one. So it’s almost like the indifference has been our downfall. 20 million people participated in this election, we may be having a totally different conversation now. But they didn’t. So it’s kind of like the indifference of a lot of people is causing in creating this situation that we’re in now,

DUNN: Yeah. Some people, you’re not going to reach. Those – a lot of people that are deeply rooted in those conspiracy theorist talks, you’re not gonna reach many of those people. So what you, what I spent my efforts on is talking to the people who may have forgotten about January 6th, or it was in the back of their mind, not letting them forget it, letting ’em know what was at stake. There were real people on the ground that day. We protected Republicans, we protected Democrats, independents alike. Mike Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Green, we protected them just as much as we did Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer, or Lindsey Graham. Anybody, no matter what your idea, political views were, the police officers, our job was to protect those members of Congress. And that was what the threat was. That was what was at stake of being lost. Not just the peaceful transfer of power, which we didn’t have. But just being able to protect people who you disagreed with, and understanding that the institution of Congress and the idea of democracy is bigger than any one person. And so I that’s what, that’s what we were out there promoting on the campaign trail, that message. The conspiracy theorists, yes, I’ve heard, I’ve heard them. But I don’t really engage with them that much because like you said, there’s been testimony, there’s been television footage, there’s been court transcripts, people under oath. And that’s what I give my attention to. That, those type. Not people that are spewing conspiracy theories on the internet.

MARTIN: I wonder if, you know, you go back in the arc of what the Stop the Steal movement represented, that there was just a deep conviction that there was a fraud being perpetrated upon them. Right, I mean, we have people for example in Georgia, several of Trump’s lawyers, including Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis that have pleaded guilty in, you know, election subversion cases trying to overturn this. But you realize that this was much bigger than what was happening on the steps of the Capitol. That there were, there were enough people in so many states across the country. And I wonder, what do you think that we recover from believing these alternate realities?

DUNN: I feel like we have to, and I feel like the only way we do that is we hold the people responsible for spreading that misinformation and lies accountable. So if you, those cases that you just talked about, the election subversion case, it was a conspiracy. They pled, they pled guilty, so they acknowledged that the election wasn’t stolen. They were trying to way to, trying to find a way to subvert the election. So we need to hold those people accountable, but they knowingly mislead people. They, the voters. Now, a lot of people, the voters get their information from credible, people that they see as credible sources, people that are gonna, so the president, the former president, was told by his advisors, advisors and this is according to them under oath, that President Trump knew that the election was not stolen. But if he could just ramp up enough people to believe, then he created this movement that it’s kind of like where we are now.

MARTIN: You have thrown your hat into the ring in politics. You ran and lost in Maryland’s third district running for Congress, right. And I wonder, and I, you also support, started a PAC, Dunn’s Democracy Defenders, which focuses on supporting candidates, basically running against pro-Trump Republicans. Why do you think, why was this important to you to take that step, and not just talking about your story about January 6th, but translating that into political action?

DUNN: I thought that I was gonna be a police officer for the rest of my working adult life. Obviously, you know, I had spent three years on the department after January 6th, so I continued to do the work even afterwards. But I realized that there was more to do. And I felt like I did what, everything I could do as a police officer. I served my country, served my community. I served the congressional community for over 15 years. And it was just important for me to do more, especially, ’cause like I said, we’re at this inflection point in our timeline where I think it’s important for people that have the ability to have the desire to have the passion to do something. And this was my something to do more. I don’t know what I’ll be doing in a year from now, I don’t know. But I’m ready to stand up and meet the challenge of what it is to use my voice. Democracy is worth fighting for. And if I can do just a little bit to inspire, to help elect, to do something to these, these new group of leaders that are fighting just as hard to preserve democracy, then I’m going to continue to do it.

MARTIN: But what’d you learn from the loss?

DUNN: Politics is an interesting world, and it is not for the faint at heart. No, but seriously, I, I, you know, I, I ran a, I believe I ran a great race. I, it isn’t much that I would do different. I’m very happy that Sarah Elfreth won. I wish it was me, obviously, but Sarah Elfreth, the one who was, who won Maryland third, congressional. She’s gonna be a fantastic representative for the people of the third district of Maryland. I’m happy to support her. But I just learned that it’s, I won’t say a dirty, it’s a dirty, I won’t say it’s a dirty game, but it’s not for the weak at heart. And you have to be in it for the right reasons which I believe that I was, and you know, we’ll see what happens in the future.

MARTIN: I wonder if in putting some of the recent events in context, we have just lived through two attacks in New Orleans and in Las Vegas, and, you know, we’re still learning about what might be have, what might have been motivating factors for these individuals to do what they did. But I wonder what, you know, when you look at this in the arc of kind of like the sort of security complex, like what, what are you concerned about, not just the safety on our streets and on New Year’s Day, but places like the Capitol and other monuments in Washington. I mean, is there something that the new administration should be keeping in mind as they come in?

DUNN: Well, first of all, I, the victims that were lost, my heart goes out to them. But one, we don’t need to politicize people’s lives being taken. Now, if there’s legislation that we can do to make it more difficult for these types of acts to transpire, then sure, let’s do it. Everybody should be for legislation that keeps people safe. Everybody should be, period. I’m not even want to get into the various, you know, talking points that you could go that way. But there people are, I hate using this term, but people become radicalized, people become extreme in their responses to what people feel they’re being not heard, not being understood. And I think we need to focus on trying to see and hear as many people as possible. And trying to have a government that works for people and hears people and doesn’t just move to be dismissive of individuals.

MARTIN: Yeah. Coming into office now, you know, president Trump has said in the past that he wants to prosecute Liz Cheney, for example. And saying that everybody on the January 6th committee should go to jail. Juxtapose that with President Biden right now, who is set to award the Presidential Citizens Medal to both Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney, who ran the January 6th committee. And I wonder, what message do you hope that people take away from these very contrasting viewpoints of two people who were serving in Congress at the time? And I know that you testified in front of them, and I know you probably know them a little bit.

DUNN: Yeah. It just shows the division of where we are. I believe that Donald Trump, he campaigned on retribution. That means, I’m going to get you back, kind of thing. The people of the January 6th committee were doing their job. It was appointed by Congress, the speaker forment it. And they did their job. And to think that the president is going to attack them or threaten them with prosecution of jail time, to think that he’s gonna do that is just, it’s insane to just, to call it what it is. And it’s really unfortunate. I’m really proud that you know, that they’re getting, they got those awards by the former excuse me, by current President Biden. I’m really glad that he acknowledged their work and their efforts. Because it cost a lot of people their careers. I mean, if you look at the people that are on the Jan that were on the January 6th committee, a lot of ’em are no longer serving in Congress anymore. Congresswoman Luria, Liz Cheney, Adam Kininger. So it’s important to acknowledge the sacrifice they made just for doing their job. And it’s really unfortunate that that’s where we are right now.

MARTIN: Former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, thanks so much for your time.

DUNN: Thank you. I appreciate it.