Biden signs bill awarding medals to Jan. 6 first responders

3 years ago 339

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden connected Thursday offered “profound gratitude” to instrumentality enforcement officers who responded to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection arsenic helium signed authorities to grant them Congressional Gold Medals for their service. The president thanked the officers for redeeming the lives of members of Congress during those “tragic hours” of the onslaught 7 months ago.

The medal is the highest grant Congress tin bestow. Joined by members of Congress, instrumentality enforcement officers and the families of constabulary who died pursuing the attack, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris held the ceremonial signing ceremonial successful the White House Rose Garden.

Many officers were brutally beaten and injured that time arsenic the convulsive mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters pushed past them to interruption into the Capitol and interrupt the certification of Biden’s victory. Many of the insurrectionists repeated Trump's mendacious claims astir wide predetermination fraud arsenic they hunted for lawmakers and tried to bushed down the doors of the House enclosure with lawmakers inside.

Some of the officers, including 4 who testified astatine a House proceeding past week, person spoken openly astir the lasting intelligence and carnal scars.

“My chap Americans, let’s retrieve what this was each about,” Biden said of the siege. “It was a convulsive effort to overturn the volition of the American people, to question powerfulness astatine each costs, to regenerate the ballot with brute force. To destroy, not to build. Without democracy, thing is possible. With it, everything is.”

The Senate passed the authorities unanimously earlier this week. The caller instrumentality volition spot the medals successful 4 locations — Capitol Police headquarters, the Metropolitan Police Department, the U.S. Capitol and the Smithsonian Institution. Biden said the medals volition beryllium astatine the Smithsonian “so each visitors tin recognize what happened that day.”

The Senate passed the authorities by dependable vote, with nary Republican objections. The House passed the measure successful June, with 21 Republicans who person downplayed the insurrection successful Trump’s defence voting against it.

Trump, on with galore Republicans inactive loyal to him, has tried to rebrand the rioting arsenic a peaceful protest, adjacent arsenic instrumentality enforcement officers who responded that time person elaborate the unit and made wide the toll it has taken connected them. The 4 officers who testified successful the affectional proceeding past week elaborate near-death experiences arsenic the rioters bushed and crushed them connected their mode into the building.

Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges described foaming astatine the mouth, bleeding and screaming arsenic the rioters tried to gouge retired his oculus and crush him betwixt 2 dense doors. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn said a ample radical of radical shouted the N-word astatine him arsenic helium was trying to support them from breaching the House chamber. Both were astatine the White House ceremony, on with respective different officers.

The officers testified astatine the archetypal proceeding of a caller House committee investigating the insurrection. Most House Republicans person staunchly opposed the Democrat-led panel, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi projected aft Senate Republicans blocked the enactment of a bipartisan commission. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy has called the committee a “sham" and criticized Pelosi for rejecting 2 of the members helium tried to name to the panel.

Instead, McCarthy and different Republican leaders — inactive loyal to Trump — withdrew each their appointments and person tried to pin blasted for the insurrection of Trump's supporters connected Pelosi, falsely claiming she was liable for delays successful subject assistance that day.

Biden said astatine Thursday's ceremonial that “we cannot let past to beryllium rewritten" and the officers' heroism cannot beryllium forgotten.

“We person to recognize what happened,” Biden said. "The honorable and unvarnished truth. We person to look it.”

At slightest 9 radical who were astatine the Capitol that time died during and aft the rioting, including a pistillate who was changeable and killed by constabulary arsenic she tried to interruption into the House enclosure and 3 different Trump supporters who suffered aesculapian emergencies. Two constabulary officers died by termination successful the days that instantly followed, and a 3rd officer, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, collapsed and died aft engaging with the protesters. A aesculapian examiner determined helium died of earthy causes.

Last week, the Metropolitan Police announced that 2 much of their officers who had responded to the insurrection had died by suicide. Officer Kyle DeFreytag was recovered dormant connected July 10 and Officer Gunther Hashida was recovered dormant successful his location Thursday. The circumstances that pb to their deaths are unknown.

“We are grieving arsenic a department,” the constabulary said successful a statement.

In a ceremonial to nonstop the measure to the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that Jan. 6 was “a moment, a time of bonzer calamity for our country” and praised the Capitol Police for their bravery and patriotism.

“I’m truthful bittersweet that it took a calamity of this quality for the designation to beryllium fixed to them,” Pelosi said.

The Congressional Gold Medal has been handed retired by the legislative subdivision since 1776. Previous recipients see George Washington, Sir Winston Churchill, Bob Hope and Robert Frost. In caller years, Congress has awarded the medals to erstwhile New Orleans Saints subordinate Steve Gleason, who became a starring advocator for radical struggling with Lou Gehrig’s disease, and biker Greg LeMond.

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This communicative has been corrected to amusement the sanction of the medal is Congressional Gold Medal, not Medal of Honor.

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