WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released the following statement after President Donald Trump granted pardons and commutations for those who participated in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, including those who violently assaulted law enforcement officers:
“On January 6, 2021, a Constitutional proceeding was disrupted when a mob of Trump-inspired thugs attacked and trashed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn a free and fair election. Americans saw this violent desecration of our Capitol in real time and horrible detail. The grimmest reality of that day was the resulting deaths of five law enforcement officers and the injury of approximately 140 others, many of whom still pay a price for that day. And now, those attackers have been pardoned by the President who incited their violence.
“This action by President Trump is a national embarrassment. These law enforcement officers risked their lives for us—and some of them died as a result of this attack. America owes these brave law enforcement officers an apology for this attempt to whitewash the truth of January 6.”
Included in President Trump’s “full, complete and unconditional pardon[s]” are David Dempsey, who was convicted of assaulting police officers by using “his hands, feet, flag poles, crutches, pepper spray, broken pieces of furniture, and anything else he could get his hands on” as weapons; Shane Jenkins, who was convicted of using two axes to break into the Capitol and assaulting police officers by throwing a desk drawer and a flagpole at them; Kyle Fitzsimons, who was convicted for five separate assaults against law enforcement, including one that caused career-ending and life-altering injuries to U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell; and Kenneth Bonawitz, a member of the so-called Proud Boys, who assaulted at least six officers, placing one officer in a chokehold and lifting him up by the neck. Bonawitz injured one officer so severely the officer had to retire.
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