Jan. 6 riot victims, Democrats see hypocrisy in Trump’s response to L.A. protests Clutch Fire

Some of the victims of the U.S. Capitol siege are angry about the Trump administration’s public statements and response to this weekend’s unrest in Los Angeles, accusing top officials and the president of hypocrisy. They point to the stark difference between the aggressive response of the president and his top aides against those who allegedly assaulted police in Los Angeles, compared to their staunch defense of those who admitted beating and gassing police on Jan. 6. The disparity risks inflaming the already heated controversy in California.

“Trump still calls January 6 a ‘day of love’ and it’s total bulls***,” said former U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who responded to the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.   

“Hypocrisy is the key word,” Dunn told CBS News. “Trump thinks anything done in his name is OK. Jan. 6 was done in his name, so our officers don’t matter.”   

Some of the Trump administration’s top national security leaders have issued forceful public statements criticizing the people accused of confronting and assaulting police in Los Angeles, amid a weekend of unrest over federal immigration raids. Those statements are stirring anger or frustration by Capitol siege victims, who are still outraged by the pardons President Trump issued to more than 1,500 Capitol riot defendants — including approximately 600 accused of assaulting police. 

On Saturday, FBI Director Kash Patel wrote a social media post stating, “Hit a cop, you’re going to jail… doesn’t matter where you came from, how you got here, or what movement speaks to you.” 

A day later, deputy FBI director Dan Bongino wrote, “If you choose violence tonight, this message is for you. We will be investigating and pursuing all available leads for assault on a federal officer, in addition to the many arrests already made.”

“It feels like those posts should have an asterisk, which says ‘effective now.’ They’re fine with police officers that got assaulted and attacked on January 6,” Dunn said, blasting those posts.

Brendan Ballou, a former federal prosecutor who handled some Jan. 6 criminal cases, told CBS News, “For Trump, the law applies to his enemies but not his friends. He calls protesters in Los Angeles ‘insurrectionists’ while praising those who attacked the Capitol on January 6 as ‘patriots’ and ‘warriors.'”   

“His use of language is deliberate: it is an attempt to rewrite history and to create a false equivalency between the protests happening now and his attempt to subvert democracy in 2021,” Ballou added. “I hope that those following don’t fall for it.”

Democrats in Congress have also noted the contrast in Mr. Trump’s decision to order the National Guard to California this weekend, despite his delay in doing so to help save the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. In a speech that morning, Mr. Trump exhorted his followers to go to the Capitol and protest the certification of the 2020 election. Just before 2 p.m., the Capitol Police chief declared a riot and requested help from the National Guard. About 2.5 hours elapsed before Mr. Trump released a video telling his supporters to go home. The National Guard arrived at the Capitol four hours after the police chief requested the troops.

Rep. Glenn Ivey, a Maryland Democrat who represents a large number of congressional employees, told CBS News, “The hypocrisy is unmistakable.”

“President Trump has urged the immediate deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles, despite the governor and mayor saying it’s not needed,” Ivey said. “Yet he delayed sending the guard on Jan. 6, when insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, violently attacked police and targeted Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi.”

In social media posts Monday, some of the convicted Jan. 6 rioters have argued that the Los Angeles unrest is larger in scale and size than the U.S. Capitol siege. In an X post that received 1 million views in its first 12 hours, a side-by-side image of a fiery and smoke-filled moment from the Los Angeles unrest is shown next to a quieter moment during the attacks from the Capitol riot. 

Dunn argued other layers of hypocrisy risk further inflaming tensions. He said outrage among Trump supporters over the waving of Mexican flags by crowds in Los Angeles minimizes the horror of the Confederate flags that were paraded on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6.

The blistering criticism of people who were part of the crowds and confrontations with police in Los Angeles marks a sharp contrast with the treatment of Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt by  Mr. Trump and his allies. She was on the front lines of the Jan. 6 mob as it breached the House Speaker’s Lobby and was shot and killed by a Capitol Police lieutenant as she entered a smashed window in a doorway. Mr. Trump has called Babbitt a “patriot,” and the Trump administration recently reached a legal settlement to give a multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded payment to Babbitt’s family.

Harrison Fields, principal deputy White House press secretary, said in a statement, “The same media that calls the chaos and anarchy in Los Angeles ‘peaceful protests’ and distracts the American people with played out narratives is the same media that covered for Biden when he allowed more than 20 million illegal immigrants into our country.”

He added that Mr. Trump “was elected to secure the border, equip federal officials with the tools to execute this plan, and restore law and order” and added that the protests underscore the need to pass the legislation containing Mr. Trump’s second-term agenda, to “provide record funding and resources to those on the front lines in Los Angeles.” 

The FBI has not responded to a request for comment on the disparity of its leadership’s reaction to Jan. 6, compared to the L.A. protests. 

Patel and Bongino, who were appointed as the top two leaders at the FBI by Trump, have a history of conspiratorial posts and statements about the Capitol attack.

In a social media post last year, Bongino wrote, “Who else was at the DNC on January 6th? Was it all a set-up?”

Patel initially defied requests for information from the House Jan. 6 Select Committee, though he did appear before the panel in December 2021. At his Senate confirmation hearings earlier this year, Patel was accused of referring to violent Capitol rioters as “political prisoners.”

The FBI also did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CBS News about Patel and Bongino’s statements.

Mr. Trump has consistently defended Capitol rioters as patriots who were victims of a “weaponized” Justice Department during the Biden administration.

Rep. Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat, told CBS News it is Trump who has weaponized the federal government. 

“Donald Trump pardoned 1,500 cop-beaters and insurrectionists, defied court orders, and weaponized prosecutions against his political opponents, yet he now pretends to care about ‘law and order’ when Americans protest his efforts to deport non-violent, non-criminal immigrants without due process,” Goldman said. “Where was the Republican outrage when Trump freed domestic terrorists?”

Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chaired the House Jan. 6 Select Committee, told CBS News, “Whether it’s the Capitol on January 6 or Los Angeles this weekend, it’s clear Trump is totally fine with lighting the match to stoke violence if he thinks it’ll help him politically. Spare us the fake outrage.”

Sara Cook

contributed to this report.