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CBS News
5 days ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Jan. 6 riot victims, Democrats see hypocrisy in Trump's response to L.A. protests
Some of the victims of the U.S. Capitol siege are angry about the Trump administration's public statements and response to this weekend's unrest in Los Angeles, accusing top officials and the president of hypocrisy. They point to the stark difference between the aggressive response of the president and his top aides against those who allegedly assaulted police in Los Angeles, compared to their staunch defense of those who admitted beating and gassing police on Jan. 6. The disparity risks inflaming the already heated controversy in California. "Trump still calls January 6 a 'day of love' and it's total bulls***," said former U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who responded to the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. "Hypocrisy is the key word," Dunn told CBS News. "Trump thinks anything done in his name is OK. Jan. 6 was done in his name, so our officers don't matter." File: Demonstrators attempt to enter the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images Some of the Trump administration's top national security leaders have issued forceful public statements criticizing the people accused of confronting and assaulting police in Los Angeles, amid a weekend of unrest over federal immigration raids. Those statements are stirring anger or frustration by Capitol siege victims, who are still outraged by the pardons President Trump issued to more than 1,500 Capitol riot defendants — including approximately 600 accused of assaulting police. On Saturday, FBI Director Kash Patel wrote a social media post stating, "Hit a cop, you're going to jail… doesn't matter where you came from, how you got here, or what movement speaks to you." A day later, deputy FBI director Dan Bongino wrote, "If you choose violence tonight, this message is for you. We will be investigating and pursuing all available leads for assault on a federal officer, in addition to the many arrests already made." "It feels like those posts should have an asterisk, which says 'effective now.' They're fine with police officers that got assaulted and attacked on January 6," Dunn said, blasting those posts. Brendan Ballou, a former federal prosecutor who handled some Jan. 6 criminal cases, told CBS News, "For Trump, the law applies to his enemies but not his friends. He calls protesters in Los Angeles 'insurrectionists' while praising those who attacked the Capitol on January 6 as 'patriots' and 'warriors.'" "His use of language is deliberate: it is an attempt to rewrite history and to create a false equivalency between the protests happening now and his attempt to subvert democracy in 2021," Ballou added. "I hope that those following don't fall for it." Democrats in Congress have also noted the contrast in Mr. Trump's decision to order the National Guard to California this weekend, despite his delay in doing so to help save the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Rep. Glenn Ivey, a Maryland Democrat who represents a large number of congressional employees, told CBS News, "The hypocrisy is unmistakable." "President Trump has urged the immediate deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles, despite the governor and mayor saying it's not needed," Ivey said. "Yet he delayed sending the guard on Jan. 6, when insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, violently attacked police and targeted Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi." In social media posts Monday, some of the convicted Jan. 6 rioters have argued that the Los Angeles unrest is larger in scale and size than the U.S. Capitol siege. In an X post that received 1 million views in its first 12 hours, a side-by-side image of a fiery and smoke-filled moment from the Los Angeles unrest is shown next to a quieter moment during the attacks from the Capitol riot. — I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) June 9, 2025 Dunn argued other layers of hypocrisy risk further inflaming tensions. He said outrage among Trump supporters over the waving of Mexican flags by crowds in Los Angeles minimizes the horror of the Confederate flags that were paraded on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6. The blistering criticism of people who were part of the crowds and confrontations with police in Los Angeles marks a sharp contrast with the treatment of Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt by Mr. Trump and his allies. She was on the front lines of the Jan. 6 mob as it breached the House Speaker's Lobby and was shot and killed by a Capitol Police lieutenant as she entered a smashed window in a doorway. Mr. Trump has called Babbitt a "patriot," and the Trump administration recently reached a legal settlement to give a multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded payment to Babbitt's family. Patel and Bongino, who were appointed as the top two leaders at the FBI by Trump, have a history of conspiratorial posts and statements about the Capitol attack. In a social media post last year, Bongino wrote, "Who else was at the DNC on January 6th? Was it all a set-up?" Patel initially defied requests for information from the House Jan. 6 Select Committee, though he did appear before the panel in December 2021. At his Senate confirmation hearings earlier this year, Patel was accused of referring to violent Capitol rioters as "political prisoners." The FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CBS News about Patel and Bongino's statements. Mr. Trump has consistently defended Capitol rioters as patriots who were victims of a "weaponized" Justice Department during the Biden administration. Rep. Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat, told CBS News it is Trump who has weaponized the federal government. "Donald Trump pardoned 1,500 cop-beaters and insurrectionists, defied court orders, and weaponized prosecutions against his political opponents, yet he now pretends to care about 'law and order' when Americans protest his efforts to deport non-violent, non-criminal immigrants without due process," Goldman said. "Where was the Republican outrage when Trump freed domestic terrorists?" Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chaired the House Jan. 6 Select Committee, told CBS News, "Whether it's the Capitol on January 6 or Los Angeles this weekend, it's clear Trump is totally fine with lighting the match to stoke violence if he thinks it'll help him politically. Spare us the fake outrage."
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Top Jan. 6 Prosecutor Quits DOJ, Slams Trump's Pardons As Green Light For Violence
A top federal prosecutor who oversaw the Department of Justice prosecutions of the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack has resigned while criticizing the sweeping pardons rolled out by President Donald Trump as a green light for political violence. 'I was shocked, if not stunned, by the breadth of the pardons,' Greg Rosen, who headed the former Capitol Siege section in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, told CBS News following his exit last week. 'I think the message that they send is that political violence towards a political goal is acceptable in a modern democratic society,' he added. 'Individuals who were duly — and appropriately — convicted of federal crimes ranging in culpability are immediately let loose without any supervision, without any remorse, without any rehabilitation to civil society.' Rosen oversaw some of the roughly 1,500 federal prosecutions related to the Capitol riot, for offenses ranging from trespassing with a dangerous or deadly weapon to assaulting law enforcement. This year, on Jan. 20, the same day Trump took office, he pardoned all of those convicted while calling their prosecution 'a grave national injustice.' Rosen's department, the Capitol Siege section, was disbanded by Trump a short time later, and he, along with a handful of other senior federal prosecutors who had brought criminal charges against some of Trump's allies, were demoted by the DOJ. Rosen plans to head to the private sector next, taking a role with the D.C. firm Rogers Joseph O'Donnell, which offers white-collar criminal defense. 'I would not change a thing about the way we conducted ourselves and the honor in which we brought to the court and to the system,' said Rosen to NBC in defense of the DOJ's handling of the Jan. 6 cases. 'The concept that these defendants were railroaded or mistreated is belied by the actual facts,' he said. 'The reality is every single case was treated with the utmost scrutiny, and every single case required the same level of due process, maximal due process afforded by the U.S. Constitution.' He added that he hopes the recorded work that he and other prosecutors performed ultimately shapes how history remembers the day's events. 'What I hope the takeaway will be to citizens of this country is that what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, was a national disgrace and then the prosecution that followed reaffirmed the principles of the rule of law and vindicated the rights and the bravery of law enforcement,' he said. In a post on LinkedIn announcing his leave, Rosen recognized his colleagues and the law enforcement officers who were injured while defending the Capitol during the attack. While quoting Martin Luther King Jr., he shared his belief that the 'arc of the moral universe' does bend towards justice, even if it may stretch further for some. 'Democracy is never easy — but the things that matter most rarely are,' he wrote. 'Keep honoring that legacy. Keep fighting for the rule of law.' 'Slap In The Face!': Outgoing Capitol Police Chief Blasts Trump Over Jan. 6 Pardons Capitol Rioter Who Assaulted Police Is Back Behind Bars After Alleged Home Burglary Man Pardoned Over Jan. 6 Capitol Attack Announces Run For U.S. Senate Former Proud Boys Leader Arrested As Group Stages Triumphant Return To Capitol
