House Democrats and the family of a U.S. Capitol Police officer who died a day after confronting rioters during the Jan. 6 insurrection scolded President Donald Trump Wednesday over his actions related to the unrest since taking office.
U.S. Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and the family of Brian Sicknick gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol to push for a resolution condemning Trump over the blanket pardons for the Jan. 6 defendants and the firing of federal prosecutors on those cases.
“They pardon criminals for violently assaulting cops, and they fire FBI agents and prosecutors for doing their jobs,” Raskin said. “That’s where we are in America today.”
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Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
He added that Trump initially denounced the actions of the rioters before the “process of trying to redefine the meaning of the events of January 6th, to whitewash the atrocities that took place that day, to cover up and to shroud in doubt the violent assaults that took place on the police officers to make people believe that it wasn’t Donald Trump’s mega mob that attacked us.”
Last month, Trump granted clemency to those charged in the riot, even those accused of violently assaulting police officers. In an interview with Fox News, he said the prison sentences for the defendants were excessive.
“These people have served, horribly, a long time,” he said.
The FBI logo and President Donald Trump (Emma Woodhead; Getty Images )
Thompson said the prosecutors who worked on the Jan. 6 cases were being scapegoated by the Trump administration.
“The people who did the hard work of tracking these 1,500 people down are now being told you didn’t do your job,” he said. “Now these people either pleaded guilty or they were found guilty, and so many of them assaulted law enforcement people and for now they are being rewarded and the people who are being patriots are being punished.”
Ken Sicknick, brother of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, said Trump’s pardons reopened wounds from his brother’s death.
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This still is taken from video footage of Julian Khater, 32, of State College, who prosecutors have accused of assaulting Capitol Officer Brian Sicknick during the Jan. 6 riot in Washington. Khater was sentenced Friday to more than six years in prison. (Reuters/Capitol Police/Department of Justice)
“On January 20th, 2025, a convicted felon and twice-impeached politician pardoned approximately 1,600 criminals responsible for the destruction of property and the destruction of the lives of law enforcement and their families, such as mine,” Sicknick said. “They were all convicted through due process. The investigations were thorough. The rule of law that the POTUS and the Republican cronies will tell you they stand for was smashed apart.
“It was smashed apart by the very same person who claimed that he is a friend of the police more than any president who’s ever been in office.”
Brian Sicknick, 42, suffered two strokes and died of natural causes the day after he confronted rioters during the riot. A medical examiner’s report showed that Sicknick was sprayed with a chemical substance around 2:20 p.m. on Jan. 6 and collapsed at the Capitol around 10 p.m. that evening.
He died around 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 7, according to the examiner’s office. Ken Sicknick noted that most of the defendants released have shown no remorse for their actions.
“We do feel powerless in a lot of cases,” he said. “What are we going to do? It’s a tiny blue-collar family going against the president of the United States.”
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Coleman said a purge of Justice Department veteran prosecutors only benefits criminal groups that engage in drug trafficking and terrorism.
“If they were not suddenly the targets of a political takeover of the federal law enforcement, they would be working to stop terrorist attacks, stop drug trafficking and drug dealers, impede human traffickers and prosecute crime across this country if they were not targeted otherwise,” she said.
“Now, those efforts will be weakened.”
