Former officer injured in Jan. 6 riot says potential pardons ‘should outrage all Americans’

Michael Fanone, a former Metropolitan Police officer who sustained injuries during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, said Thursday that the recent talks of pardoning individuals who were sentenced for their roles in the insurrection “should outrage all Americans.” 

During an appearance on “CNN News Central,” co-anchor Boris Sanchez asked Fanone for his thoughts on the sentencing of Stewart Rhodes — the founder of the far-right group the Oath Keepers — and comments that former President Trump made about potential pardons if elected to the White House in 2024.

“I mean, it’s outrageous. It should outrage all Americans,” Fanone, who currently serves as a law enforcement analyst for the network, responded. “You know, Stewart Rhodes was convicted by a jury of his peers for his actions, which resulted in the injuries sustained by myself and hundreds of other police officers on Jan. 6.”

“Not to mention the fact that America became a national and international embarrassment on the world stage,” he added.

A federal judge on Thursday sentenced Rhodes, 58, to serve an 18-year prison sentence following his conviction on seditious conspiracy charges for his role in the Capitol riot. The sentence represents the longest assigned to a figure involved in the riot thus far.

Fanone also noted that he finds it “sickening” that Trump is still aligning himself with people like Rhodes, citing the statements he made during a CNN town hall earlier this month. 

“It’s sickening that the former president would have aligned himself with individuals like this in the statements that he made in his town hall and continues to make on a daily basis,” Fanone said.

Trump, who announced his third presidential campaign last November, has expressed interest in pardoning those who were charged for their roles in the insurrection.

“It’s a disgrace what they’ve done to them. What they’ve done to these people is disgraceful,” the former president said at the time.

Fanone’s remarks come as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who announced his presidential campaign Wednesday, also claimed that if elected he would consider pardons for all Jan. 6 defendants, including Trump.

“On day one, I will have folks that will get together and look at all these cases, who people are victims of weaponization or political targeting, and we will be aggressive in issuing pardons,” DeSantis said on “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show” podcast.

“I would say any example of disfavored treatment based on politics, or weaponization would be included in that review, no matter how small or how big,” he added.