Biden tears into ‘sick insurrectionists’ at January 6 event, calls it ‘July 6’

President Joe Biden condemned ‘sick insurrectionists’ and bestowed high honors on Friday to those who stood up against the January 6 mob two years ago and thwarted efforts to upend 2020 election results in several swing states, declaring ‘America is a land of laws, not chaos.’

‘Our democracy held,’ Biden said in awarding Presidential Citizens Medals to fourteen recipients from across the country in the White House East Room. ‘We the people did not flinch.’

The honorees were a who’s who of those who testified before the House Select Committee on January 6 including opening witness, Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, Republican Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, and Georgia poll workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss.  

At least nine people who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, died during or after the rioting, including Ashli Babbitt who was shot and killed by police as she tried to break into the House chamber and three other supporters of then-President Donald Trump who suffered medical emergencies, according to authorities.

Two officers, Howard Liebengood of the Capitol Police and Jeffrey Smith of the Metropolitan Police, were at the Capito during the attack and died by suicide in the following days. Biden honored both with posthumous medals.

A third officer, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, collapsed and died after engaging with the protesters. A medical examiner later determined he died of natural causes.

‘Sick insurrectionists,’ Biden said. ‘We must say clearly with a united voice that there is no place … for voter intimidation or election violence.’

‘What you did was truly consequential. Not a joke,’ Biden told the awardees, including family members of the fallen officers. ‘If I could halt for a second and just say to you the impact of what happened on July the 6th had international repercussions beyond what any of you can understand,’ Biden said, messing up the date by six months.      

Biden spoke with frustration about the death of Capitol Police Officer Billy Evans, who was killed in a car attack in April 2021, while the Capitol Building was still heavily fortified in the aftermath of the insurrection. 

Evans died, Biden said, ‘three months after January 6 while they’re still cordoning off the Capitol because of the threats of these sick insurrectionists continued to be profligated on the internet.’ 

‘Officer Evans was killed defending the checkpoint you had to go through to get up to the Capitol because of these God-awful sick threats that continued to go forward,’ the president continued. ‘And the whole world saw it.’ 

The president also got riled up when he spoke about what happened to Freeman and Moss, the mother-and-daughter Atlanta election workers who became targeted by former President Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani for passing a fictional USB drive filled with fake votes to one another. 

When Moss testified before the January 6 committee in June, she revealed she had given her mother a ‘ginger mint.’ 

‘Both of them are just doing their job until they were targeted and threatened by the same predators and peddlers of lies that would fuel the insurrection,’ Biden said. ‘They were forced from their homes facing despicable racist taunts.’ 

Biden said he had become a ‘friend’ of former D.C. Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone, one of the most outspoken officers about getting people held accountable since the Capitol attack. 

As he gave an award to Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell, Biden butchered his name and then remarked: ‘He can call me President Bidden from now on’ – a lighthearted moment in what was otherwise a somber occasion. 

Presenting Metropolitan Police Department Officer Daniel Hodges with his medal, Biden recalled one of the most shocking scenes of the riot – seeing Hodges screaming in agony as he was getting crushed in a Capitol doorway.

‘His first time inside the Capitol was on January 6 – sprayed with poison, pinned and crushed, eye almost gauged out, but he didn’t break,’ Biden recalled. 

‘After it was over, he was asked what he had been fighting for. Just a local guy. An ordinary American and he gave a simple, straightforward answer,’ Biden continued. 

Hodges’ answer, the president said, was ‘democracy.’   

‘He wasn’t a scholar, he wasn’t a historian, he was a red-blooded American fighting for democracy,’ Biden said.  

When offering condolences to the family of Officer Liebengood the president recalled how he had known the late cop’s father, Howard Liebengood Sr., had served as Senate sergeant at arms in the 1980s. 

‘Howard’s dad was a good friend,’ Biden said. ‘We were genuinely friends.’ 

‘He lost his life after protecting the democratic institutions he learned to revere growing up,’ Biden added. 

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The president applauded the families of both Liebengood and Smith for pushing to get laws changed so that officers who experienced traumatic events and then committed suicide would be considered line-of-duty fatalities, allowing their families access to better death benefits. 

Biden’s event was ongoing as news broke that the mother of Babbitt, the MAGA protester who was shot and killed by Capitol police amid the attack, was arrested for demonstrating Friday outside the Supreme Court. 

A handful of people who were aligned with the MAGA mob marked the two-year anniversary of the Capitol riot with a push for justice for those arrested for participating. 

While the congressional investigations about Jan. 6 have ended, the criminal cases are still very much continuing, both for the 950 arrested and charged in the violent attack and for Trump and his associates who remain under investigation. The second seditious conspiracy trial begins this week for members of the far-right Proud Boys.