The family of US Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick snubbed top congressional Republicans on Tuesday during a gold medal ceremony to honor the officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Officer Sicknick’s mother Gladys Sicknick, and his brother, Ken, refused to shake the hand of top Republicans Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell at the ceremony.
Video shows the Sicknicks greeting top Democrats House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer then just walking by McCarthy and McConnell without acknowledging them even though McConnell had reached out his hand.
Officer Sicknick suffered a stroke and died of natural causes one day after defending the Capitol against a mob of Trump supporters on Jan. 6.
Asked by CNN why she didn’t shake hands with McCarthy or McConnell Gladys Sicknick denounced them as “two-faced”.
“They’re just two-faced,” she told to CNN. “I’m just tired of them standing there and saying how wonderful the Capitol police is and then they turn around and … go down to Mar-a-Lago and kiss his ring and come back and stand here and sit with – it just, it just hurts.”
“They have no idea what integrity is,” Ken Sicknick said. “They can’t stand up for what’s right and wrong.”
Both McCarthy and McConnell condemned Trump immediately after the riot. But, while McConnell has distanced himself from the former president, McCarthy embraced him. He visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago after the riot and defended him during the House investigation of the events leading up to Jan. 6.
McCarthy has also signaled that he plans to launch an investigation into the bipartisan House panel looking into the Jan. 6 Capitol riot when Republicans control the House in the next Congress.
Twenty-one House Republicans voted against the legislation to award congressional gold medal to the officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, while the legislation passed unanimously in the Senate.
“January 6 was a day of horror and heartbreak. It is also a moment of extraordinary heroism. Staring down deadly violence and despicable bigotry, our law enforcement officers bravely stood in the breach ensuring that democracy survived on that dark day,” Pelosi said Tuesday.
She continued: “So on behalf of the United States Congress and the American people, it is my honor to present the Congressional Gold Medal to the United States Capitol Police, the Metropolitan Police and every hero of January 6, from every agent that responded that day.”
