Former D.C. Metropolitan police officer Michael Fanone lamented that President Donald Trump pardoned the rioters he once arrested.
Trump spent his first hours in office issuing mass clemency for the 1,583 people who faced charges for their actions at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Some 1,230 had been convicted or pleaded guilty. Another group of about 200 pleaded guilty to felonies that included assaulting officers. Fanone was on the job and at the scene that day.
“I have been betrayed by my country, and I’ve 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,” Fanone said on CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins. “Tonight, six individuals who assaulted me, as I did my job on Jan. 6, as did hundreds of other law enforcement officers, will now walk free.”
Fanone was among those whom former President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned for testifying to the defunct Jan. 6 committee. The former officer had not been charged with any crime at the time of Biden’s announcement, which happened hours before Trump was inaugurated.
“All I can say is that I think it’s a sad commentary on where we are as a nation that a sitting president thought it necessary to issue a preemptive pardon to a witness in a congressional investigation because the subject to that investigation is now the president and had promised to pursue politically motivated revenge,” Fanone said of his pardon. “Again, it’s just more examples of the outrageous behavior of the current president of the United States.”
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These clemencies come after Vice President J.D. Vance assured pardons were coming for those who “protested peacefully” in the days leading up to Inauguration Day. At the time, Vance said, “If you committed violence on that day, obviously, you shouldn’t be pardoned.”
Some convicted rioters had already left prison before the end of the day Monday.