Tucker Carlson says U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn is an angry left-wing political activist
U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn said the attacks that Black law enforcement agents endured on Jan. 6 were not just physical, but verbal.
In a March interview with The Washington Post, Dunn said he was called the n-word more than a dozen times that day in January. Black police officers, he said, “were fighting a different fight” as a throng of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol grounds and building — some violently attacking police officers standing in their way.
Dunn will be one of the first witnesses to testify next week before a special committee tasked with investigating the insurrection. But Fox News host Tucker Carlson, during his Wednesday night broadcast, cast doubt on the officer’s ability to testify objectively.
“Dunn will pretend to speak for the country’s law enforcement community, but it turns out Dunn has very little in common with your average cop,” Carlson said. “Dunn is an angry left-wing political activist.”
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The comments quickly drew backlash on social media, with one lawmaker saying Dunn “put his body between lawmakers and an armed mob.”
“Forever grateful to officers like Harry Dunn,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) tweeted.
Dunn’s attorneys — David Laufman and Mark Zaid — also responded, saying their client would “lay down his life” to protect any member of Congress, regardless of party. The lawyers said Fox News allowed Carlson to criticize a Black Capitol Police officer’s heroism despite never serving “a day in uniform, whether military or law enforcement.”
“Our client has served 13 years in law enforcement and on January 6, 2021, fought against an insurrectionist violent crowd — no doubt many of them Carlson’s supporters — to protect the lives of our elected officials, including Vice President Pence,” Laufman and Zaid wrote in a statement posted on Twitter.
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Carlson based his skepticism of Dunn’s impartiality on past social media posts from the Capitol Police officer, including one praising four Democratic congresswomen known as “the Squad.”
Share this articleShareLaufman and Zaid said Dunn’s testimony next Tuesday will go on as planned.
Dunn has been a vocal advocate for police officers who protected the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. In May, he joined family members of Brian D. Sicknick in trying to persuade Republicans to investigate the riot. Sicknick, another Capitol Police officer who fought back the crowd, died the day after the attack.
Plans for the bipartisan committee to investigate the riot fell apart on Wednesday when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, moved to block two Republican lawmakers — Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana — from participating.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Republicans will pursue their own investigation rather than participate in what he called Democrats’ “sham process.”
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Dunn told The Post earlier this year that he cried in the Capitol Rotunda, yelling in frustration in the building where rioters earlier carried a Confederate flag. He turned to his Black colleagues to cope with the treatment he faced that day.
“That causes pain — lingering pain,” he said.
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Thursday about Carlson’s segment and Dunn’s lawyers’ response. The attorneys said Wednesday night that Carlson does not want the truth about what happened on Jan. 6 to emerge.
Hannah Knowles and Lateshia Beachum contributed to this story.
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