In a new memoir, the hero cop is naming names like Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham and his own union bosses.
“This is my reality,” said Michael Fanone.
The bearded, tattooed ex-cop and I were walking to his pickup truck from federal court in D.C., where he’d just watched the sentencing of a member of the mob that beat him with a Blue Lives Matter flagpole, tased him repeatedly at the base of his skull, and nearly killed him on Jan. 6, 2021. The courthouse was a hive of supporters of Jan. 6 defendants, one of whom cursed Fanone in the courtroom, another of whom shouted at him about a conspiracy theory as he stepped away from the building. As we made our way down Pennsylvania Avenue, a man followed us, videotaping from his phone the entire time.
Fanone, a ubiquitous TV presence since suffering a traumatic brain injury and a heart attack as a result of the assault, is accustomed to the snarling randos. They’ve shown up at his house and the homes of his mom, dad and ex-wife; they’ve made the onetime Donald Trump voter and self-described “redneck cop” afraid of what might happen to him in the isolated rural hunting redoubt that used to be his “safe place” away from the life of an urban vice officer. But when his take-no-prisoners memoir about his experience lands next week, the main targets of his scorn won’t be the random extremists ranting on sidewalks and raving on Telegram. Instead, he’s taking swings at the bigwigs who Fanone says have sought to sweep Jan. 6 under the rug.
The average score-settling memoir is apt to devolve into a he-said/she-said news cycle. Some of the conversations depicted in Fanone’s Hold the Line have a key difference: The author made surreptitious recordings of his interactions with the likes of House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, national Fraternal Order of Police President Patrick Yoes, and leaders of Fanone’s own local, among others. Other conversations, with people such as South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, weren’t recorded but are recounted in cringey detail.
Thus we see McCarthy, finally taking a meeting with Fanone, fellow Jan, 6 hero Harry Dunn, and the mother of late Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, lamely try to run out the clock on their conversation. We see Graham snap at Gladys Sicknick that “we’re going to end the meeting right now” if she keeps speaking ill of Trump. And we see Yoes telling Fanone that he’s waiting for direction from the local lodge about Jan. 6 advocacy — and the leader of that lodge telling Fanone that “I’m hesitant to start putting out information one way or the other about January 6” because of political divisions among membership.
There are also cameos by Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson, and Rep. Andrew Clyde, the man who referred to Jan. 6 as a “normal tourist visit” and later drew flak for refusing to shake Fanone’s hand.
In toto, the interactions add up to a bunch of influential people telling Fanone that, although they may personally support him, they won’t do anything public to speak up against the significant portion of the population who think the insurrection was somehow fake.
“I approached those interactions in the same way that I approached doing an undercover drug buy or participating in any other narcotics operation,” Fanone tells me. “I’d casually make the drive to the Hill, relax myself” using breathing exercises designed to lower blood pressure and calm nerves. “And then the minute I parked my car and got out, it was like, you just turn a switch on. And, you know, every conversation that I had was intentional and every interaction I had was intentional.”
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In Fanone's new memoir, he recalls interactions he had with influential people telling him that, although they may support him, they won’t do anything public to speak against the significant portion of the population who think the insurrection was fake.https://t.co/TEFxBTSgKJ
— POLITICO (@politico) October 7, 2022
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