Act Daily News
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President Joe Biden on Friday plans to mark the two-year anniversary of the January 6, 2021, riot by awarding for the primary time in his presidency the Presidential Citizens Medal to 12 individuals.
The people embody legislation enforcement officers who have been injured defending the Capitol, a Capitol Police officer who died the day after rioters stormed the constructing and election staff who rejected efforts by former President Donald Trump to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 election.
Biden is about to ship remarks and host a ceremony on the White House honoring the dozen people chosen for having made “exemplary contributions to our democracy” and proven “courage and selflessness” across the occasions of January 6, a White House official aware of the main points informed Act Daily News.
The Presidential Citizens Medal is without doubt one of the nation’s highest civilian honors, given to American residents deemed to have “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.” Biden’s resolution to tell apart Americans he sees as having protected the nation’s Capitol, its democratic establishments and elections system, is without doubt one of the main methods wherein the president has sought to attract a stark distinction from his predecessor.
Biden informed Act Daily News’s Phil Mattingly on Thursday that he prays “to God” that one other riot “never happens again.” Asked by Mattingly at a Cabinet assembly what the importance is of the group Biden invited to the White House ceremony, the president mentioned a “lot of thinking” went into it.
More than half of Friday’s 12 recipients of the Presidential Citizens Medal are present and former legislation enforcement officers.
They embody Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, credited for luring rioters away from the doorway to the Senate chambers as lawmakers have been evacuating by utilizing himself as “bait”; former DC police Officer Michael Fanone who was brutally assaulted by rioters and mentioned he suffered a coronary heart assault on account of the expertise (Fanone is now a Act Daily News contributor); and Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who testified earlier than the House January 6 committee that she hit her head throughout a conflict with the insurrectionists and was knocked unconscious earlier than she selected to run again into the chaos.
One individual will obtain the medal posthumously: Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who was decided to have suffered strokes and died the day after he had responded to the riot. Washington DC’s chief health worker mentioned that “all that transpired” on that day had “played a role in his condition.” Sicknick’s stays have been laid in honor on the Capitol Rotunda final 12 months.
Other recipients of the Presidential Citizens Medal on Friday embody election staff credited for having rejected efforts by Trump and his supporters to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 election.
They embody Shaye Moss and her mom Ruby Freeman, who each labored as election staff in Fulton County, Georgia. The two ladies, who’re Black, gave emotional and poignant testimony to the House January 6 committee, describing how their lives have been turned the wrong way up after the previous president and his allies publicly disparaged them as election fraud hustlers.
“There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?” Freeman informed the House panel.
Moss informed the committee that Trump’s assaults on her – and the storm of racist threats that adopted – upended her life. “I don’t want anyone knowing my name,” she mentioned. “It’s affected my life in a major way, in every way – all because of lies.”
Rusty Bowers, the Arizona House speaker who has spoken out about resisting an intense stress marketing campaign from Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 election, and Al Schmidt, a former Republican metropolis commissioner in Philadelphia publicly mocked by Trump as a “RINO” (Republican in title solely) for rejecting claims of widespread election fraud within the metropolis, shall be honored.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell, Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Department Officer Daniel Hodges are additionally among the many 12 set to obtain the medal.
Marking the one-year anniversary of the riot final 12 months, Biden delivered an impassioned deal with calling out Trump’s assaults on American democracy.
“For the first time in our history, a President had not just lost an election. He tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol,” Biden mentioned in a speech from the Capitol. “But they failed. They failed. And on this day of remembrance, we must make sure that such an attack never, never happens again.”
While Biden has largely steered away from weighing in on the main points of the House January 6 committee and its work, in addition to the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into the day’s occasions, he has constantly spoken out extra broadly about how the day marked an unacceptable assault on the nation’s democratic pillars.
He additionally injected the theme of defending the nation’s democracy into the midterm elections. The problem proved to be a extra resonant one with voters than many had anticipated, leaving the White House feeling vindicated.
This week, as political drama and infighting engulfed House Republicans who did not elect a House speaker over a number of rounds of voting, the president referred to as the debacle an “embarrassing” episode for the nation – and made clear that January 6, 2021, was on his thoughts.
“How do you think it looks to the rest of the world?” Biden informed reporters on Wednesday. “We’re really getting through the whole issue relating to January 6. Things are settling out. And now, for the first time in 100 years, we can’t move?”