‘I need a drink’: DC police officer injured on Jan. 6 expresses frustration following meeting with Kevin McCarthy

In right-wing pro-Trump media, Michael Fanone — a Capitol police officer who was injured by supporters of former President Donald Trump on January 6 — is often accused of exaggerating the violence he experienced and witnessed first-hand that day. And Fanone expressed his frustration after a June 25 meeting with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

The far-right wingnuts who have defended the January 6 insurrectionists range from Fox News' Tucker Carlson to Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin to Rep. Andrew Clyde, who recently, didn't even want to talk to Fanone. Clyde, a Georgia congressman, compared the January 6 rioters to harmless "tourists."

After his meeting with McCarthy, Fanone told reporters, "This experience, for me, is not something that I enjoy doing. I don't want to be up here on Capitol Hill. I want to be with my daughters."

Fanone has continued to demand accountability for the violence that occurred on January 6, when a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol Building in the hope of stopping Congress from certifying now-President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over Trump in the 2020 election. In addition to being beaten by Trump supporterse and hit with a stun gun, Fanone suffered a heart attack and a brain injury.

Another Washington, D.C. police officer was at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6 was Brian Sicknick, who died following the attack. Sicknick's mother, Gladys Sicknick, has — like Fanone — been demanding accountability for the January 6 insurrection.

Fanone has said of Clyde's comments comparing the rioters to nonviolent tourists, "I found those remarks to be disgusting." And Fanone, after his June 25 meeting with McCarthy, told reporters, told reporters, "I also asked (McCarthy) to publicly denounce the baseless theory that the FBI was behind the January 6 insurrection."

Senate Republicans, under the leadership of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, recently used the filibuster to block a bill calling for a committee that would study the January 6 insurrection—not unlike the 9/11 commission that studied and probed the al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, however, has said that she plans to form a select committee on January 6. And McCarthy, according to Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, "did commit to taking [the committee] serious, once he heard from the speaker about it."