Stephen Ayres, witness for the Select Committee who testified he felt duped by Trump, approached officers in the hearing room and apologized for his actions on January 6.
Ayres of northeast Ohio is set to be sentenced in September after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor. He was not accused of committing any violence or destruction.
Ayres said he wasn’t planning to storm the Capitol before Trump’s speech “got everybody riled up.” He had believed the president would be joining them at the Capitol.
After the hearing, Ayres approached Capitol Police Officers Aquilino Gonell and Harry Dunn, Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges and former MPD officer Michael Fanone, and apologized.
Fanone told The Associated Press that the apology was not necessary because “it doesn’t do s— for me.” Hodges said on CNN that he accepted the apology, adding that “you have to believe that there are people out there who can change.”
Gonell, who recently found out that the injuries he succumbed to on Jan. 6 won’t allow him to be a part of the force any longer, said he accepted the sentiment from Ayres, but it doesn’t amount to much.
Harry Dunn did not stand when Ayres approached him, and did not accept the apology.
In an interview with Lawrence O’Donnell, Dunn said that Ayres owes an apology to the entire world, to the entire American democracy, to the American people for keeping officers from doing their jobs that day.