Jan. 6 committee: Police officer defends calling rioters 'terrorists'

Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges detailed the weapons used against officers that day.

"There were over 9,000 of the terrorists out there with an unknown number of firearms and a couple hundred of us, maybe. So, we could not -- if that turned into a firefight, we would have lost," he said. "And this was a fight we couldn't afford to lose."

The officers said the weapons used against them included police shields, police batons, hammers, a sledgehammer, flag poles, tasers, pepper spray, bear and wasp spray, copper pipes, rocks, table legs broken down, guardrails and cones.

"Any weapons, any items they can get their hands on," he said. 

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told the witnesses that he may not have been alive today if not for their sacrifices on Jan. 6 and teared up after an emotional exchange with Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn.

He said he was haunted by Dunn asking, "Is this America?" on Jan. 6 and posed the question to Dunn himself: "Is this America, what you saw?"

"Frankly, I guess it is America. It shouldn't be. But I guess that's the way that things are," Dunn said. "It's not the side of America that I like or the side that any of us here represent. We represent the good side of America, the people that actually believe in decency and human decency and we appeal to just the good in people."

He then added he found it "encouraging" that Republican members were sitting on the panel to make it bipartisan.

"That's the side of America that I say yes, this is America. This is the side I like and acknowledge," he said. 

Schiff, his voice shaking, thanked the officer who endured racial attacks on Jan. 6 and said, 'I believe in this country, and I believe in it because of people like you."

An emotional Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, opened his questioning by acknowledging the heaviness in the hearing room but offering praise for the witnesses.

"I think it's important to tell you, right now, though you guys may individually feel a little broken -- you guys all talked about the effects you have to deal with and you talked about the impact of that day -- but you guys won. You guys held," Kinzinger said. "Democracies are not defined by our bad days. They're defined by how we come back from bad days, how we take accountability for that."

"Serving on this committee, I'm here to investigate Jan. 6, not in spite of my membership in the Republican Party, but because of it, not to win a political fight, but to learn the facts and defend our democracy," he continued.

In an apparent nod to the loyalty some lawmakers have to the former president, Kinzinger said, "On January 6, the temptation to compromise their oath didn't come in the form of a campaign check or leadership or an all caps tweet, it came in the form of a violent mob." 

Kinzinger asked all four officers if they agree with some out there who say it’s time to move on. All of them said no. 

"There can be no moving on without accountability. There can be no healing until we make sure this can't happen again," said Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges.

When Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., asked Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell to respond to former President Donald Trump saying, "It was a loving crowd, there was a lot of love in the crowd," Gonell blasted the former president and placed responsibility on him for sending the mob that attacked them.

"It’s a pathetic excuse for his behavior for something that he himself helped to create, this monstrosity," Gonell said. "I'm still recovering from those 'hugs and kisses' that day."

"If that was hugs and kisses, we should all go to his house and do the same thing to him," he added. "To me, it's insulting, it's demoralizing because everything that we did was to prevent everyone in the Capitol from getting hurt." (He later apologized for the comment, saying before answering another question, "Before I start, by no means am I suggesting that we will go to his house. I apologize for my outburst.")

Gonell went on to counter those who claim it wasn’t Trump supporters at the Capitol to illustrate how Trump could have stopped them.

"It was not antifa, it was not Black Lives Matter, it was not the FBI. It was his supporters that he sent over to the Capitol that day. He could have done a lot of things," he said.

"He talks about sacrifices. The only thing he has sacrificed is the institutions of the country and the country itself only for his ego, because he wants the job, but he doesn't want to do the job. That's a shame on him himself," Gonell added.