U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger responded Friday to Fox News host Tucker Carlson having recently targeted Officer Harry Dunn, a member of his force set to testify in the House soon about Jan. 6.
“He’s entitled to his opinion, but I will tell you this: My cops, every one of them who was out here on Jan. 6, deserves to have their story told. Their voice needs to be heard,” Chief Manger told WUSA9.
The reporter who interviewed Chief Manger for WUSA9, the local CBS affiliate, said his comments were made directly in response to Mr. Carlson having recently called out the officer ahead of him testifying.
“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,” Mr. Carlson said on his widely viewed cable show Wednesday.
“Dunn is an angry, left-wing political activist,” Mr. Carlson claimed.
Mark S. Zaid, a lawyer representing the Capitol Police officer, said the following day that his client subsequently received numerous vile and racist messages, including several that cited Mr. Carlson.
The office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, said Mr. Carlson had “slandered” the officer and unsuccessfully called on Republican leadership to publicly condemn his comments afterward.
Mr. Dunn and three other police officers are scheduled to testify Tuesday in the House before members of the newly created Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The hearing will be the first held publicly by the panel, which the House recently voted to establish after efforts to set up an independent commission were blocked on Capitol Hill by Senate Republicans.
Scores of police officers were injured during the events of Jan. 6, when rioters supporters of then-President Trump stormed the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying his loss in the 2020 election.
Chief Manger, who previously led the police departments for Fairfax County, Virginia, and Montgomery County, Maryland, before retiring in 2019, told WTOP the Capitol riot made him want to go back to work.
“On Jan. 5, I was very happy to be retired and had a good career. On Jan. 6, I wished that I wasn’t retired, and that’s what inspired me to come back,” he told WTOP after starting his new job Friday.
WUSA9 reporter Mike Valerio conducted the interview with Chief Manger. He then shared a brief video clip that included the comments about Mr. Carlson through his account on the social media service Twitter.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.