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Daniel Hodges thinks of himself as an introvert — he is soft-spoken and says he is averse to the highlight. At night time, he is an area police officer in Washington, D.C. However throughout his off-duty hours this 12 months, Hodges has grow to be a singular and really public advocate on Capitol Hill.
He instructed CBS Information he is making an attempt to be a firewall to dam the whitewashing of the historical past of the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol siege.
“The one factor that can cease me is that if folks cease mendacity about Jan. 6 and simply acknowledge what the day was and what actually transpired,” Hodges stated.
He was among the many greater than 140 cops injured whereas making an attempt to cease the U.S. Capitol rebel.
With Republicans now answerable for the White Home and Congress and a few within the get together downplaying the severity of the Capitol siege, there are restricted platforms for victims of the assault to speak about its affect on their lives.
Hodges has grow to be a go-to witness for Democrats in congressional hearings about police security.
The mission generates some stress and battle for Hodges. At an October subcommittee listening to within the Senate, Hodges watched as three of his fellow witnesses raised their arms, when requested in the event that they supported President Trump’s pardons of the Jan. 6 attackers, together with those that had crushed Hodges. One of many witnesses who raised his hand was a former homeland safety secretary throughout President Trump’s first administration.
Because the minority within the Home and the Senate, Democrats are permitted to name one witness at most hearings, to function a “minority get together” witness who supplies a counterpoint to the witnesses referred to as by the bulk.
Twice this autumn, Democrats have referred to as on Hodges.
“The ability of Dan Hodges’s narrative comes from the self-control he shows,” stated Sen. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat who’s the rating Democrat of a Senate judiciary subcommittee that referred to as Hodges to testify in October. Welch stated Hodges, “erased any of the legit anger he might have had about Jan. 6, to simply inform us what occurred throughout the listening to.”
Democrats argue Hodges’ testimony and presence at congressional hearings underscores the hypocrisy of Trump supporters who’re making public statements in assist of more durable legal guidelines or insurance policies to guard police on the identical time they’re downplaying the assaults on regulation enforcement officers on Jan. 6.
Welch famous that Republicans declined to ask Hodges any questions or communicate to him within the listening to room after the testimony.
“It’s important to do an immense quantity of mental and emotional jujitsu to fake you did not hear what Hodges stated or acknowledge the fact of what he skilled,” Welch stated.
At a Dec. 3 listening to convened by the Home Homeland Safety Committee titled “When Badges Change into Targets: How Anti-Legislation Enforcement Rhetoric Fuels Violence In opposition to Officers,” Hodges testified that Mr. Trump’s mass pardon of greater than 1,500 Capitol riot defendants emboldens and encourages additional violence in opposition to police.
“The press launch saying this listening to made it sound like sure members had been going to spend just a few hours scratching their heads and pretending to not perceive why threats in opposition to regulation enforcement have risen so sharply this 12 months, and I can’t abide such a farce,” Hodges stated in his opening assertion.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who referred to as Hodges as a witness for the listening to, stated he did so to fight “pervasive misinformation.”
Thompson instructed CBS Information, “Everyone noticed Jan. 6 with their very own eyes. However Trump has satisfied a massive share of the inhabitants that these weren’t insurrectionists.”
At an October listening to within the Senate titled “Politically Violent Assaults: A Risk to Our Constitutional Order,” Hodges was the only real witness referred to as by Democrats.
“I’m intimately accustomed to political violence, as once I fought to defend the USA Capitol and plenty of of your very lives, I used to be crushed, bloodied, and crushed, with my eye gouged and cranium smashed with my very own baton,” Hodges testified.
He criticized Republicans on the panel for not acknowledging the Capitol riot, telling them, “My colleagues had been below assault by a mob.”
Hodges stated Republican members of the panels didn’t ask him questions throughout the public hearings of the committees, nor did they thank him after the proceedings. Spokespeople for the Republican chairmen of the panels at which Hodges has testified this 12 months didn’t reply to CBS Information requests for remark about Hodges’s testimony.
At a Home listening to this month by which Hodges appeared as a witness, the Republican chair of the committee opened the proceedings with broader statements in regards to the threat of “inflammatory rhetoric” endangering the lives of regulation enforcement and risking homeland safety, together with latest rhetoric criticizing federal immigration brokers.
Hodges spoke with CBS Information as a non-public citizen, not as a consultant of the Metropolitan Police Division in Washington, D.C.
He had testified beforehand earlier than a nationwide viewers, in 2021 at a public listening to of the Home Jan. 6 choose committee, which investigated the causes and affect of the riot.
Mr. Trump’s victory in 2024 and his first-day pardons of the riot defendants have triggered criticisms of the administration that it’s ignoring – or rewriting – the historical past of the siege.
In issuing the clemency of Capitol riot defendants, the White Home stated the President’s determination “ends a grave nationwide injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American folks during the last 4 years and begins a strategy of nationwide reconciliation.”
Hodges acknowledges he additionally has acquired threats and menacing amid his public statements.
Former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who has attended some congressional hearings to assist Hodges, instructed CBS Information, “Danny has been unwavering and cleared each impediment he is confronted, whereas persevering with to serve.”
Dunn, who additionally testified and appeared at hearings of the Home Jan. 6 choose committee in 2021-22, stated, “Danny’s and my mission has been the identical. We’re searching for accountability and justice in opposition to those that had been accountable for the worst days of our lives.”
Hodges instructed CBS Information it is going to be inconceivable to persuade all Individuals in regards to the fact of the affect of Jan. 6 on the police victims. When requested if he is optimistic that the deniers of the violence of the siege will change their minds, Hodges paused earlier than answering.
“There are nonetheless folks on the market who suppose the moon touchdown was pretend and that the Holocaust wasn’t actual,” he stated. “So you aren’t going to get 100%.”
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