Capitol Police officer: Trump should have been arrested ‘on Jan. 7’

Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who was on duty during the Jan. 6 insurrection and has been a prominent critic of former President Trump since, said action should have been taken sooner after rioters broke into the Capitol Building.

“They should have arrested him on January 7, but I’m not the one doing the investigation,” Dunn said in a CBS interview Thursday. “Every day that goes by, the more that is at stake.”

Dunn was in the courtroom Thursday when Trump was arraigned on four federal charges for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Dunn said the arraignment represents the beginning of a long process.

“It was good to see the road to justice being followed,” he said.

“True accountability and true justice comes in the form of a guilty verdict, so I didn’t expect much here, but this is a necessary step to getting to that ultimate destination that I’ve been pounding the pavement for.”

The arraignment is Trump’s second on federal charges, with both investigations led by special counsel Jack Smith. The first Smith investigation handled allegations that Trump mishandled classified documents in Florida.

On Tuesday, Smith said in a statement that the Jan. 6 insurrection was an “unprecedented assault” on democracy and “fueled by lies.”

Dunn said those acknowledgements of the insurrection and police efforts “meant a lot to me” and were a “special moment” for himself and his coworkers.

Trump also faces a New York state trial over hush money payments and a separate investigation in Georgia looking into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in that state.