WASHINGTON — On Jan. 6, 2021, Harry Dunn was a rifle-wielding U.S. Capitol Police officer grappling with supporters of President Donald Trump who had stormed the Capitol in a failed effort to block Congress from finalizing the 2020 presidential electoral vote. Six months later, Dunn wiped away tears as he described the searing memories before a House committee.

On Monday, Dunn, 41, learned outgoing President Joe Biden was preemptively pardoning him along with members of the Jan. 6 investigating committee and others who criticized Trump’s actions in the aftermath of a 2020 election that the now-incoming president called “rigged.”

Dunn heard about the pardon Monday morning while watching the news at his Silver Spring home. He found it difficult to put his conflicting emotions into words.

He is gratified, he told The Baltimore Sun on Monday, that Biden presented him with a legal shield in case Trump, who is beginning a second term, considers charges against those who investigated or publicly countered the president’s version of Jan. 6 events.

He is disheartened that such a pardon was necessary, and that — he says — Trump and his supporters are trying to rewrite a piece of history he saw from his Jan. 6 post at the building’s West Front, which commands a postcard-perfect view from atop the National Mall with the Washington Monument in the distance.

Dunn — a 6-foot-7 former James Madison University offensive lineman who ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year in Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District —encountered pushing and shoving on Jan. 6 and saw colleagues bloodied or doused with pepper or bear spray. He said he was threatened less than others because he had a rifle and “maybe because of my size.” He described being called racial epithets by rioters.

“I’ll never forget the images of that day,” Dunn said Monday.

Trump said during the campaign that he is considering pardons for some of the Jan. 6 defendants.

“Listen, it’s a lie. It’s misinformation when people are suggesting that their old, 70-year-old grandma is sitting in jail for peacefully protesting,” Dunn told The Sun. “People that are in jail currently are people who attacked police officers, people who committed violent acts against police officers. Those are the people that entered the Capitol, that trespassed. They got probation, they got fined, but they weren’t political prisoners and hostages.”

Dunn issued a statement Monday thanking Biden and saying: “I wish the pardon weren’t necessary, but unfortunately the political climate we are in now has made the need for one somewhat of a reality. I, like all of the other public servants, was just doing my job and upholding my oath, and I will always honor that.”

Biden also pardoned Gen. Mark A. Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the members and staff of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack.

“Our nation relies on dedicated, selfless public servants every day. They are the lifeblood of our democracy,” Biden said in a statement. “Yet alarmingly, public servants have been subjected to ongoing threats and intimidation for faithfully discharging their duties. These public servants have served our nation with honor and distinction and do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions.”

Dunn left the force after Jan. 6 and wrote a memoir called “Standing my Ground.” He lost his Democratic U.S. House primary election to now-Rep. Sarah Elfreth in May.

He received the Presidential Citizens Medal from Biden and founded an organization to help elect people he says are “defenders of democracy.”

Dunn said he loved reporting for work and looking at the Mall below. His post was near the inauguration platform the rioters scaled in 2021 to try to get into the building.

“The pride I had protecting that place still exists,” he said. “With history, we have to take the good with the bad.”

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