Washington Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges was pepper sprayed, beaten in the head, punched, and kicked in the chest and face at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He nearly had his eye dug out of its socket and was repeatedly assaulted and almost crushed to death in a doorway by supporters of Donald Trump.
Hodges was a stalwart defender of people inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. He has since been unequivocal in stating what happened that day, taking on critics, trolls and detractors with a resolute calm and even a sense of humor.
On Wednesday, when HuffPost asked Hodges what he made of Trump’s victory and the path ahead for the nation, his answer was succinct.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “Immigrants voted to be put in concentration camps. Women voted to be breeding stock. Men voted for cruelty, malice, to abandon allies. People voted for someone who would see them never vote again. I don’t understand people. It’s going to be a cold January.”
Hodges has no doubt about what he saw, heard or felt on Jan. 6. He has testified before Congress and in courts at length, including in Colorado, where a group of Republican voters sought to disqualify Trump from ever holding public office again. They had sued to remove Trump from the ballot this year, pointing to his remarks at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, as well as the sea of evidence in the public record already underlining his failure to quell the mob’s attack on the Capitol for three hours.
The voters said Trump violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars anyone from service in office who took an oath to uphold the Constitution and then abandoned that sacred document by aiding an insurrection or providing comfort to the nation’s enemies.
As HuffPost reported in March, a court in Colorado had initially ruled against challenges to Trump’s eligibility for the ballot, finding that the office of the presidency was not something Section 3 considered. On appeal, the Colorado Supreme Court revived the case, finding Section 3 did apply to the presidency and, further, that Trump had engaged in insurrection, making him ineligible for future office. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, overruled that decision — and the rest is history.