Alarm bells are ringing for law enforcement officers who publicly testified before the House Jan. 6 Committee and at countless criminal proceedings -- and who see the repercussions of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise to pardon defendants charged in connection with the attack on the U.S. Capitol rang Courthouse News reports. During a press call hosted by Public Citizen Wednesday, former Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone said that he has received “dozens upon dozens” of threats from currently incarcerated Jan. 6 defendants. Fanone, who was dragged from the police line outside the Capitol into a mob of rioters, tased multiple times in the back of the neck and suffered a concussion, warned that if Trump pardoned such defendants “the level of violence is going to rise.”
Trump has remained vague as to how far-reaching his pardons would extent — previously stating he would consider them on a “case-by-case basis” and decrying the treatment of nonviolent defendants— but hinted in a press conference on Tuesday that he may consider pardons for violent offenders. Also, during a Tuesday press conference, Trump repeated a debunked conspiracy theory that the violence of Jan. 6 was sparked by undercover FBI agents and informants — and added a bizarre assertion that the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah was also somehow involved. Four police officers died by suicide in the months that followed the Jan. 6 riot and another died after suffering from two strokes on Jan. 7. Former U.S. Capitol Police officer Aquilino Gonell, who was also dragged into the mob and clashed with rioters at the Lower West Terrace tunnel where the violence was the most intense, said that he and other Capitol police officers felt uneasy as Trump's inauguration approached. Since Trump’s 2024 election several rioters have requested permission to attend his inauguration on Jan. 20. One defendant, William Pope, who has not yet faced trial, has received judicial permission to attend the inauguration.
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