WASHINGTON — Michael Fanone, a former police officer who was nearly killed by a mob during the January attacks. 6 against the U.S. Capitol, spoke outside the courthouse Tuesday during closing arguments in Donald Trump’s secret trial, calling Trump “authoritarian” with “a fetish for violence.”
Hours later, Fanone’s mother was “crushed” at her home in Virginia.
On Tuesday, a fake “manifesto” attributed to Fanone was sent to a number of email addresses, including some associated with a high school that Fanone attended for a year more than two decades ago. The “manifesto,” seen by NBC News, claimed the writer killed their mother and planned to go to the recipient’s school on Wednesday and shoot more people. It provided the home address of Fanone’s mother.
That night, Fanone told NBC News, her mother answered the door for law enforcement while she was in her nightgown, “mortified” to find SWAT team officers in her home.
“How dangerous is it to send law enforcement to an address where you’re basically describing an active shooter, where the only person there is a fucking 78-year-old woman,” Fanone told NBC News. “This is the reality of confronting or defying Donald Trump. … These calls to crush are incredibly dangerous, especially when the target is someone like my mother.”
Police in Fairfax County, Virginia, told NBC News in a statement Wednesday that police went to the neighborhood where Fanone’s mother lives around 7:40 p.m. the day before for a welfare check.
“Officers made contact with the resident, who was confirmed to be OK, following a suspicious email that we were made aware of through our partners at the Montgomery County Police Department. [in Maryland]“The ministry said in a statement. “Detectives from our Threat Assessment Management (TAM) unit are investigating the circumstances of this matter and the malicious nature of the initial email. »
The FBI had no immediate comment.
Fanone said it was his understanding that police received more than two dozen calls in connection with the crash incident. Fanone said his father was also targeted at his address, but was abroad.
“All I do is go out there and talk about what happened to me and so many other police officers, like I always have, and this is the remedy,” said Fanone. “It’s a direct result of that.”
Fanone had already spoken out about the attack on the Capitol before January 1. 6 Committee and made remarks at the sentencing hearings of the rioters who attacked him. He left the Metropolitan Police Department in late 2021 after being given a desk job and feeling targeted by other MPD officers.
Fanone, who voted for Trump in 2016, spoke outside the courthouse Tuesday as part of a campaign event for President Joe Biden. He blamed the attack on the Capitol on Trump’s “lies.”
“These supporters have been fueled by lies from Trump and his surrogates, lies that the 2020 election was stolen,” Fanone said. “These same lies were told by Donald Trump and his surrogates about what happened to me and so many other police officers on January 6, 2021, the day I was brutally assaulted.”
Fanone named four individuals – all Trump supporters – who attacked him in January. January 6, 2021: Albuquerque Head, serving 7.5 years in federal prison; Kyle Young, who is serving a sentence of more than 7 years; Thomas Sibick, sentenced to four years in prison; and Danny “DJ” Rodriguez, who put a stun gun into Fanone’s neck and is serving one of the longest sentences given to a Jan. 6 rioters, 12.5 years in federal prison.
“These four individuals are self-proclaimed Trump supporters, all four committed violent attacks against law enforcement. I am just one representative of the hundreds of police officers who were attacked that day by Trump supporters. Donald Trump inspired by his lies, the lies that continue today to incite my fellow Americans to turn against their fellow Americans and against the police,” Fanone said. “Ultimately, this election is about Donald Trump and his vision of the office of president of the United States, not as a public servant who answers to elected officials, to the people who elected him, but as an authoritarian man. who only responds to and serves himself.
Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the federal election interference case against Trump in Washington and the classified documents case in Florida, was the target of a Christmas bust attempt, as reported reported NBC News. So is Tanya Chutkan, the federal judge overseeing Washington’s election interference case, who is currently on pause while the Supreme Court decides whether the presidency is a license to commit crimes with full immunity .