Harry Dunn, a former U.S. Capitol Police officer, speaks Tuesday at a press conference about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. With him are, from left, Sam Liebert of All Voting is Local and Nick Ramos of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

A former U.S. Capitol Police officer who survived the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack said Tuesday the insurrection must not be forgotten four years later — and candidates running for election now should face up to what happened then.

“This attempt to whitewash, downplay, normalize what happened on Jan. 6 is ongoing and shows no signs of letting up,” said Harry Dunn during a meeting with reporters in Madison.

Criticizing Republicans who have urged Democrats and the public “to move on from Jan. 6,” Dunn said the attack met the definition of an insurrection — “a violent uprising against the government. Full stop.”

“That’s what Jan. 6 was,” he added. “The police officers just happened to be in the way. But anybody that fails to accept that, acknowledge that for what that was, deserves to be called out, condemned.”

Pro-democracy advocates arranged for Dunn to speak to the press in the state Capitol building and deliberately chose one particular meeting room on the third floor — 300 South, the same room used by Republican fake electors in December 2020 who filled out false electoral votes choosing Donald Trump as the Wisconsin winner of an election that he lost.

The fake elector scheme “was hatched in Wisconsin and launched from here to the rest of the United States,” said Scott Thompson, a staff attorney for Law Forward, at Tuesday’s press conference.

The nonprofit law firm sued Wisconsin’s fake electors and won a settlement in which they acknowledged in writing they had tried “to improperly overturn the 2020 presidential elections results.” The scheme culminated in the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, Thompson said.  

“The events of Jan. 6, 2021, were not just an attack on a building or a single moment in time, but they were an attack on our collective voice as voters,” said Sam Liebert, Wisconsin director of the voting rights group All Voting is Local Action. “The insurrection was a brazen and egregious attempt to silence millions of Americans nationwide to overturn the results of a free and fair election through violence and intimidation.”

Four years later in 2024 Trump won the U.S. popular vote, including a 30,000-vote majority in Wisconsin, returning him to the White House effective Jan. 20. There one of his first acts was to pardon more than 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6 attack.

Dunn’s visit to Wisconsin focused on Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel’s comments about the Jan. 6 defendants, including during a recent radio interview. Schimel is a Waukesha County circuit court judge and former Wisconsin attorney general.

In a Jan. 2 appearance on the Vicki McKenna show, Schimel said that Jan. 6 defendants didn’t have “a fair shot” when they were tried and blamed “lawfare manipulation” for the conviction of defendants in the attack.

Schimel suggested they would have been acquitted had they not been put on trial in “overwhelmingly liberal” Washington, D.C., and that the prosecutors appointed under the Democratic administration “would never take their prosecution in a district where you had a fair shot as a defendant.”

The federal government prosecuted the rioters in Washington because the city is where the U.S. Capitol is located.

Nick Ramos, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, mentioned Schimel’s radio interview before introducing Dunn.

“Four years ago, far-right mobs swarmed the Capitol, assaulted officers and tried to overturn the will of voters,” said Ramos. “It’s pretty straightforward, and yet Schimel, our former attorney general, still thinks these people weren’t given a fair shot and their trials were political gamesmanship.”

Dunn said he’s taken an interest in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race because of Schimel’s comments.

“I’ve been fighting for accountability from day one,” Dunn said. He holds Donald Trump primarily responsible for the riot.

“That accountability won’t happen,” he said. But he added that he also wants to hold accountable “public officials who believe that Donald Trump’s pardoning of these individuals was OK” — including Schimel.

“I don’t know Brad Schimel’s positions on policy on anything else, except for that he is OK with supporting the rioters who attacked me and my coworkers, period,” Dunn said. “And that is not OK — and that’s what’s bringing me here.”

During a news conference Monday featuring his endorsement by Wisconsin Republican members of Congress, Schimel accused prosecutors of overcharging some Jan. 6 defendants until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the law under which they were charged didn’t apply to them.

He also said that “anyone who engaged in violence and Jan. 6, assaulted a police officer, resisted arrest, those people should have been prosecuted … and judges should impose sentences that are just under the circumstances.”

Schimel also defended the president’s power to issue pardons: “It’s a power they have. I don’t object to them utilizing that.”

Dunn was asked Tuesday about Schimel’s comments.

“If you believe that the individuals who attacked police officers should serve their sentence, then the only response to Donald Trump’s pardons should be that they’re wrong,” Dunn replied. “He should not pardon them — and those words did not come out of [Schimel’s] mouth. So he’s attempting to play both sides.”

In an interview, Dunn said he’s kept going despite disappointment at Trump’s 2024 victory because “I believe in doing what’s right.”

That’s what led him to become a police officer, he said, and after the Capitol attack, to mount an unsuccessful campaign for Congress. He also has a political action committee, raising funds to support political candidates who are pro-democracy, he said.

Dunn acknowledged that some who opposed the president have given up in despair while others have become embittered toward Trump voters.

“I’ve seen people say, ‘You know what? This is what you all voted for. You get what you deserve,’” he said. “There are a lot of people who did not vote for this, that are going to be impacted by the things that Donald Trump and this administration are going to do, and I believe they deserve somebody that’s going to fight for them.”

There will be elections this year, in 2026 and 2028, all opportunities for change, “so I encourage people,” Dunn said. “And I think part of my work is to make sure people are educated before Election Day and not outraged after Election Day.”