Jan. 6 cops stump for Biden in Pittsburgh, warn that Trump is 'threat to democracy'

Two former U.S. Capitol Police officers who were injured responding to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot in Washington said during a Pittsburgh campaign stop Tuesday that former President Donald Trump poses a continuing threat to democracy.

The officers, Harry Dunn and Aquilino Gonell, appeared at the Fred Rogers statue on the North Shore as part of a press tour the two are doing across Pennsylvania with President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. They shared their stories from Jan. 6 and admonished Trump for saying he would pardon those convicted of crimes related to the Capitol attack.

Gonell, an Army veteran who was a Capitol Police sergeant at the time of the attack, said the mob tried to drag him into the crowd and someone hit him with a flagpole while the American flag was still attached.

“We were assaulted and beaten by a mob who believed Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen,” said Gonell, who suffered injuries to his hands, left shoulder, left calf and right foot and has undergone two surgeries since.

His injuries were part of the reason he resigned from the Capitol Police in 2022.

Dunn, hard to miss at 6-foot-7, served 15 years in the Capitol Police. He called Trump a “threat to democracy” and predicted the former president would try to subvert democracy again if put back in the White House.

Dunn, a Democrat from Maryland, ran unsuccessfully for Congress this year.

The pair of former cops, both of whom testified before Congress about their experiences, were flanked Tuesday by about 15 Biden supporters, including Pittsburgh City Controller Rachael Heisler.

“This is about democracy versus dictatorship,” Dunn said. “The choice could not be more clear.”

The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some police unions, including the International Union of Police Associations, endorsed Trump for president this year.

The tour will make stops later in Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Erie and the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area. Dunn said he and Gonell will also be traveling to other battleground states to campaign.

The Pittsburgh stop came less than a week after Trump was convicted in a New York court on 34 counts of falsifying business records at his company in connection with a scheme to cover up an alleged tryst with a porn star by hiding the potentially embarrassing story during his 2016 presidential election campaign.

Both Dunn and Gonell addressed the conviction but said it was not the reason they wanted to see Trump defeated. Dunn said Trump should never have run again after his role in the Jan. 6 riot.

Trump was impeached and then acquitted for inciting the attack on the Capitol.

Dunn said he was more interested in Trump’s charges in federal court.

The former president and Republican Party standard-bearer is accused in a Washington court of conspiring to defraud the United States by illegally subverting the results of the 2020 presidential election and the peaceful transfer of power.

Dunn said he hopes the federal case will lead to another conviction for the president, but he said voters shouldn’t rely on that.

“We cannot depend on our (legal) institutions to save us from Donald Trump,” he said. “We have to defeat him at the ballot box.”

The two officers encouraged Republicans, conservatives, and others to join their cause.

They were joined by one former Republican who said Trump’s behavior in office and his first impeachment led her to become a Democrat.

Lindsey Scott, an Iraq War veteran from Crawford County, said she used to see herself as a Republican in line with former Arizona Sen. John McCain but left the GOP because of what she called Trump’s poor leadership.

Scott pointed to Trump’s vow to pardon people convicted of Jan. 6 crimes as a step too far.

“Trump would absolutely destroy our democracy if it meant holding on to personal power,” she said.