Former D.C. police officer Michael Fanone claims in his forthcoming book that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C) snapped at the mother of slain Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick and threatened to end their meeting if she didn’t stop criticizing Donald Trump.
In the book, Fanone writes that Graham snapped at Gladys Sicknick, telling her “we’re going to end the meeting right now” if she keeps speaking ill of Trump, Politico reports.
Officer Sicknick, 42, suffered two strokes and died of natural causes on Jan. 7, one day after engaging with pro-Trump rioters who stormed the US Capitol to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.
Sicknick’s family met with Republican senators after his death to urge them to vote to establish a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection. They were unable to change the senators’ minds as they later opposed the formation of the bipartisan commission to investigate the attack.
Earlier this year, Officer Sicknick’s longtime partner Sandra Garza told the New York Times that she confronted Sen. Graham in the meeting for being “disrespectful.”
“I said, ‘I feel like you’re being very disrespectful, and you’re looking out the window and tapping your fingers on the desk,'” Garza said.
The Department of Justice indicted two Capitol rioters, Julian Elie Khater and George Pierre Tanios, last month in connection to Sicknick’s death.
Khater pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers with a dangerous weapon and Tainos pleaded guilty to entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds.
Fanone’s book, Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul, is set for release on Oct. 11.
