In his closing remarks before the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn compared the mob that stormed the Capitol, fueled by Trump’s false claims of election fraud, to a hit man hired to kill someone.
“If a hit man is hired and he kills somebody, the hit man goes to jail. But not only does the hit man go to jail, but the person who hired them does. It was an attack carried out on Jan. 6 and a hit man sent them. I want you to get to the bottom of that,” Dunn told lawmakers at the panel’s first official hearing on Tuesday.
Dunn praised Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) for agreeing to serve on the panel despite the backlash from their party, but questioned why more Republicans weren’t following suit.
“Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are being lauded as courageous heroes. And while I agree with that notion, why? Because they told the truth? Why is telling the truth hard? I guess in this America, it is,” Dunn said.
Earlier in the hearing, Dunn compared Jan. 6 to other protests, saying that day was different because of how it originated.
“The only difference that I see is that they had marching orders, so to say,” Dunn said.
Dunn, who is Black, also recounted how a group of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol yelled racial epithets at him after he told them to leave the building.
Dunn said that during the riot, he observed people wearing “Make America Great Again” hats and “Trump 2020” shirts, and told them to leave.
“No man, this is our house. President Trump invited us here. We’re here to stop the steal. Joe Biden is not the president. Nobody voted for Joe Biden,” they told him.
Dunn noted that as a law enforcement officer, “I do my best to keep politics out of my job.”
“But in this circumstance, I responded, ‘Well, I voted for Joe Biden. Does my vote not count? Am I nobody?’ ” he said.
Dunn sighed. “That prompted a torrent of racial epithets,” he said.
He said a woman in a pink MAGA shirt yelled, “You hear that guys, this n—– voted for Joe Biden.” Then the crowd of what he estimated was around 20 people joined in, screaming “boo f—ing n—–.”
Later that day after the rioters were cleared, Dunn said, he sat down on a bench in the Capitol Rotunda with a friend who is also a Black Capitol Police officer.
“I told him about the racial slurs I endured and became very emotional and began yelling, ‘How the blank could something like this happen? Is this America?’ ” Dunn said. “I began sobbing. Officers came over to console me.”