CD-001: Betrayed By Their Country
"That was a day of love." ~ Donald J. Trump, 45th and 47th President of the United States
It’s a brisk morning in Virginia, one of the first of the year, as Officer Michael Fanone gets ready for what he thinks will be just another day on the job.
Fanone has been a police officer for more than twenty years. He began his career with the U.S. Capitol Police, the federal force that protects the seat of our nation’s government, before moving to the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, D.C.
He settled in Virginia. Had a couple of kids. In 2016, he even voted for Trump.
Another day, another heroin bust.
Then he hears the radio code.
“10-33. Officer in need.” A distress call.
Michael Fanone drops what he’s doing and races toward the United States Capitol.
Because today is not just another day.
It’s January 6, 2021.
Miles away, Daniel Rodriguez has already arrived in D.C.
Rodriguez, a man in his mid-thirties from California, is deeply devoted to President Donald Trump. When Trump calls on his supporters to gather outside the Capitol, Rodriguez answers.
After the rally, Rodriguez joins the crowd that marches toward, and eventually storms, the U.S. Capitol. On the steps near the Lower West Terrace tunnel, he and the mob collide with a line of police struggling to hold ground.
By mid-afternoon, the city is already in crisis. Pipe bombs are discovered outside both the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters. Police identify a Trump supporter’s truck packed with guns and eleven jars of gasoline. The original breach point at Peace Circle is overrun.
Police forces are stretched thin. Too thin.
And the Lower West Terrace tunnel becomes one of the most violent flashpoints of the day.
The clash lasts for more than an hour.
Michael Fanone arrives in D.C. He puts on riot gear and joins other officers. He can’t believe what he’s seeing, but he does the job anyway.
A commanding officer shouts, “We need fresh guys!”
Fanone steps forward to relieve a colleague who has grown exhausted.
The line buckles. Pressed by the crowd, Fanone loses his baton. Arms wrap around his neck.
“I got one!” he hears his attacker yell.
The world starts to go dark.
On the other side of the chaos, Daniel Rodriguez calls out:
“We need tasers!”
Later, in federal custody, Rodriguez says he never thought someone would hand him a weapon. He claims that he expected others who had them to move forward and use them.
But someone hands him a stun gun.
At that moment, another rioter drags a fallen officer into the crowd. Fists and boots rain down.
And Daniel Rodriguez presses the stun gun into the back of Officer Fanone’s neck.
Twice.
That moment happened five years ago today.
Michael Fanone survived. Other officers pulled him from the mob and rushed him to a hospital. He suffered a concussion. He suffered a heart attack. He lived.
But January 6 ended his career all the same. He officially retired from the Metropolitan Police Department in October 2022. The day he was dragged into a violent mob, however, was his last day as a street cop.
Daniel Rodriguez made it into the Capitol. Inside, he vandalized offices, ransacked rooms, smashed windows, and stole what he could. He was arrested nearly three months later.
In interrogation footage later aired publicly, Rodriguez breaks down. “I’m so stupid,” he says between sobs. “I thought I was gonna be awesome. I thought I was gonna be a good guy.”
Court records later show that Rodriguez had organized a Telegram group chat called “PATRIOTS45MAGA Gang” in late 2020. The group had been used to plan premeditated acts of violence.
In June 2023, Daniel Rodriguez was sentenced to 151 months (12 1/2 years) in federal prison.
On the afternoon of January 20, 2025, just hours after his inauguration, President Donald Trump pardoned Daniel Rodriguez along with roughly 1,500 other January 6 rioters. Hundreds of them had been convicted of violent crimes.
That same evening, Michael Fanone appeared on Anderson Cooper 360.
“I have been betrayed by my country,” he said. “Rest assured, I have been betrayed by my country and by those who supported Donald Trump. Tonight, six individuals who assaulted me as I did my job on January 6, as did hundreds of other law enforcement officers, will now walk free.”
More than 140 police officers were injured that day. Fanone was one of them. But in some ways, you could argue that he got lucky.
Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick suffered two strokes as a result of his injuries and died the next day.
Three days later, Officer Howard Liebengood died by suicide.
Five days after that, D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith also died by suicide.
All three are classified as line-of-duty deaths.
Not because they fell in battle overseas. But because their own country broke faith with the people who stood between it and the mob.
That’s what betrayal looks like.
Donald Trump calls January 6 “a day of love.”
But love doesn’t look like abandoning the people who protected our seat of government from a violent insurrection.
Love doesn’t turn violence into virtue.
And it sure as hell doesn’t look like betrayal masquerading as patriotism.
-S