Michael Fanone, a DC Metropolitan police officer who responded to the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, said Friday he “would love” to go on Fox News and tell his story. Fox News’ ratings juggernaut Tucker Carlson has been using his primetime program to fan the flames of a conspiracy suggesting the FBI had something to do with the deadly riot, which was carried out by supporters of former president Donald Trump.
“I’ve never been approached about doing any media appearances on Fox News. I would love to do an appearance on any show on Fox News and I would challenge any of the 21 [congressmembers] that voted against the Gold Medal bill acknowledging police officers that have a skewed view or [are] plain lying about January 6 to come on those shows and talk to me and listen to my experience and what hundreds of other officers went through on January 6, at the insurrection,” he said on CNN’s “New Day.”
Fox News declined TheWrap’s request for comment.
On Tuesday, 21 House Republicans voted against legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal to officers who responded to the riot. As CNN reported this week, it’s a sign that congressional representatives still can’t agree on the facts of what happened that day, when Trump supporters breached the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of then-president elect Joe Biden’s electoral win.
The partisan divide in acceptance of the event is most obvious on cable news. Carlson first brought up the conspiracy theory about the FBI Tuesday night, the same day the 21 Republicans voted against the Gold Medal legislation. He told his millions of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” viewers, “Strangely, some of the key people who participated on Jan. 6 have not been charged. Look at the document. The government calls those people ‘unindicted co-conspirators.’ What does that mean? Well, it means that in potentially every single case, they were FBI operatives.”
Wednesday night, after 24 hours of outcry, he brought it up again, dedicating another chunk of his show to the theory, which he sourced from right-wing website Revolver News, and decrying Twitter for slapping a warning label on his now-deleted tweet about it.
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