The Biden campaign is pulling out all the stops in an effort to defeat former President Donald Trump in November's election.
The campaign announced Tuesday that three former and current police officers who were present during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol protest will travel to swing states to try to persuade voters not to choose Trump, CBS News reported.
The Republican is currently running ahead of Biden in polling in all seven key battleground states likely to decide this year's contest, according to the RealClear Polling average of polls.
The Cook Political Report showed Trump up in six of the seven, with Wisconsin a dead heat.
#NEW @CookPolitical Swing State Poll:
NEVADA
Trump 49% (+9)
Biden 40%
.
PENNSYLVANIA
Trump 48% (+3)
Biden 45%
.
MICHIGAN
Trump 47% (+2)
Biden 45%
.
NORTH CAROLINA
Trump 48% (+7)
Biden 41%
.
WISCONSIN
Biden 45%
Trump 45%
.
GEORGIA
Trump 47% (+3)
Biden 44%
.
ARIZONA
Trump 45% (+1)… pic.twitter.com/fwS1CFOwkN
— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) May 24, 2024
In 2020, Biden carried Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, only losing North Carolina to Trump.
The Cook Political Report's Electoral College map currently has Trump winning 302 to Biden's 225.
Electoral Map Based On @CookPolitical latest polling (270 to win):
🔴 🏆 Trump 302 (+77)
🔵 Biden 225
Not enough Data 11 pic.twitter.com/2U1zJqLXFz
— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) May 27, 2024
Clearly the ongoing four criminal prosecutions brought by local Democratic districts attorneys and the Biden Justice Department are not having their intended effect.
Hence the campaign's "Hail Mary" of pulling in two former Capitol Police officers and one who currently works for the D.C. Metropolitan Police to tell voters that Trump supposedly poses a threat to democracy.
The irony of them trying to put the presumptive Republican nominee in jail for the rest of his life over what can only be described as, forgive me, trumped up charges, escapes the Biden campaign.
"Former Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, former U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, and D.C. police officer Danny Hodges will act as surrogates for the campaign in states including Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and New Hampshire in the weeks and months ahead," CBS News reported.
"The campaign says the trio will underscore Trump's praise for theJan. 6 rioters, including having called them 'unbelievable patriots,' and how Trump said he'll be a dictator on 'day one' of a second term."
Even the accusatory language the campaign clings to reeks of desperation.
Trump joked during a Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity in December that he would be dictator on his first day in office to reverse by executive order policies that Biden implemented when he came into office.
“I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill,” the former president said, referring to restoring the secure southern border and energy policies he had in place when he left office.
On Tuesday, the Biden campaign rolled out some of their D.C. police surrogates at a news conference in front of the Manhattan courthouse where Democrat DA Alvin Bragg's "get Trump" case is being tried.
Former D.C. police officer Michael Fanone said, "I heard distress calls coming from fellow police officers on the Capitol as thousands of Trump supporters rushed them and brutally assaulted members of law enforcement."
"That day, I like many other hundreds of other D.C. police officers, put on a uniform and responded to the Capitol to assist our brothers and sisters in law enforcement," he added.
BREAKING - YOUR REACTION: January 6 police officer Michael Fanone blasts Trump and Trump supporters at a strange press conference outside Trump courtroom in New York as closing arguments take place inside, says, "On January 6, 2021, I heard distress calls coming from fellow… pic.twitter.com/Y5z8vP5Q14
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) May 28, 2024
Why is Trump responsible for what a small minority of bad actors did on Jan. 6? He, like many, voiced concerns about the integrity of the 2020 election, given the unilateral rule changes Democratic election officials made in the run up to the contest.
The 45th president specifically said at a rally near the White House earlier that day, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
That sounds like he was encouraging them to exercise their First Amendment rights to free speech and to “peaceably” assemble and “petition the government for redress of grievances.”
That’s the American way.
The DOJ's own annual report on Jan. 6 prosecutions given earlier this year showed even a majority of those charged with crimes did not engage in violence.
U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves said on Jan. 6 of this year that there had been nearly 900 convictions. Of these, 149 people were convicted of “assaulting, resisting or impeding officers.”
Graves noted federal officials were still trying to identify an additional 80 people who he said did some type of violent act that day.
So, of the tens of thousands of people in Washington to protest the conduct of the 2020 election, around 200 people participated in some level of violence toward officers. Trump didn't ask them to do it, but they chose to do so.
The real threat to democracy is Joe Biden and the Democrats, with their political prosecutions, not Donald Trump.
A handful of Washington D.C. police officers are not going to persuade most of the American public otherwise.
